Top Downing Street spin doctor grilled by Tommy Sheridan and denies being a bully

Andrew Coulson, 42, spent 45 minutes in the witness box at the High Court in Glasgow. He denied he had been an intimidating editor whose staff lived in fear and were expected to produce stories at any cost.

Downing Street's director of communications said: "I am not a bully and I was not a bully."

Mr Coulson said he had resigned from the News of the World after one of his staff was convicted of illegal phone hacking but that was simply because he had felt he should take overall responsibility because of his position.

"As far as my reporters were concerned, my instructions were very clear - they were to work within the law," he told the court.

Mr Coulson was spared having to answer some of the questions posed by Sheridan, when the judge, Lord Bracadale, ruled they were irrelevant in the current trial.

The questions included the size of payment he had received on leaving the paper, and whether its proprietor, Rupert Murdoch, had been the first visitor to Downing Street after his appointment.

Sheridan, 46, won a defamation action against the News of the World in 2006 over allegations it printed about his private life. He and his wife, Gail, 46, are now accused of giving perjured evidence during the litigation.

In the trial, Sheridan, who is conducting his own defence, has alleged a campaign against him by the News of the World and has alluded to surveillance by bugging his car and tapping his phone. Mr Coulson was editor in London between 2003 and 2007, which spanned the stories about Sheridan in the paper's Scottish edition and the defamation case.

"I left because one of my reporters (royal editor Clive Goodman) was convicted of a crime and I decided I should take overall responsibility for it and I stood down. He was convicted of phone hacking... I had not known he was doing this," said Mr Coulson.

Goodman was jailed along with a private investigator, Glenn Mulcaire.

Mr Coulson said he had never met or spoken to Mulcaire, or heard his name, until the "Clive Goodman situation."

He had known of Mulcaire's firm doing work for the paper and he was aware of legitimate payments to the firm but "the payments that involved Clive Goodman were paid without my knowledge."

Sheridan asked: "Would the News of the World employ people who break the law?"

Mr Coulson said: "No. They certainly would not seek to.Obviously we did because of the Clive Goodman case."

In further questioning, Sheridan asked about Rupert Murdoch and Mr Coulson said he had spoken to him from time to time, mostly about politics.

"Did he expect anything in return for your appointment as David Cameron's director of communications?" Sheridan asked.

"Certainly not," said Mr Coulson.

Sheridan raised an employment tribunal in which a former sports reporter won 800,000 after suffering "a consistent pattern of bullying behaviour."

Mr Coulson said he had not been asked to give evidence at the tribunal and disputed its finding, saying he was not, and had not been, a bully.

Next, Sheridan referred to a House of Commons select committee report which stated that the News of the World, at best, turned a blind eye to illegal activities or, at worst, actively condoned them.

"I do not accept there was a culture of phone hacking. There was a very unfortunate, to put it mildly, case involving Clive Goodman.

"No-one was more sorry about it than me, that's why I resigned," said Mr Coulson.

He added that he recognised the phrase "dark arts" as describing illegal activities in newspapers. He said: "All I can tell you is, as far as my reporters were concerned, my instructions were very clear - they were to work within the law and within the PCC (Press Complaints Commission) code. It was in their handbooks."

Sheridan pointed out former News of the World reporter Sean Hoare had claimed that Mr Coulson encouraged him to break the law to access stories.

"Did you ask Sean Hoare to practise his dark arts?" he asked.

Mr Coulson stated: "Certainly not."

A film, allegedly featuring Sheridan and recorded covertly, has been a major issue in the trial. Sheridan has suggested it was manufactured, using someone to impersonate his voice.

Mr Coulson said that his editor in Scotland, Bob Bird, had brought the tape's existence to his attention and he had travelled to Glasgow to view it. He agreed he had not seen Sheridan's face but said he recognised his voice.

"I believed it to be authentic on my first viewing. We matched it with other recordings of your voice and it seemed pretty authentic to me. I still believe it was you," said Mr Coulson.

His evidence is due to continue today.