IF YOU really want to get the inside story on phone hacking, just head for St Mary Magdalene Church in Woodstock on September 17.

The tip-off comes from Simon Kelner, the former editor of the Independent, who as a media commentator and Woodstock resident is well placed to throw light on the scandal.

Never mind the Chipping Norton set – none of the power hungry, affluent media moguls and politicians actually lived in Chipping Norton in any case – Mr Kelner once belonged to the Blenheim Palace Estate grouping.

He lived on the palace estate at a time when it was also home to the likes of Rebekah Brooks (who then edited The Sun) and Rupert Murdoch’s daughter Elisabeth and her husband, the public relations man Matthew Freud.

So in many ways Woodstock is a fitting place to host a major debate on the whole issue of phone hacking, as it will during this year’s Independent Woodstock Literary Festival, which runs from September 14 to 18.

Mr Kelner will be chairing the discussion, which will feature leading columnists and writers such as Stephen Glover, David Aaronovitch and Patrick Jephson, the first and only Private Secretary (Chief of Staff) to Diana Princess of Wales. The film star Hugh Grant, one of the first public figures to demand a public inquiry into phone-hacking, is also expected to make a guest appearance.

Mr Kelner, who this summer was replaced as editor of the Independent after 13 years, now lives just a few yards away from the entrance to Blenheim in a house once owned by the brother of Geoffrey Chaucer.

When it comes to greed, lies and hypocrisy, the hacking saga certainly can boast a cast of characters to rival anything in the Canterbury Tales.

“We all know it took place,” said Mr Kelner. “We all know it wasn’t right. But I hope we will look at the lessons we can learn from what has gone on.

“Two years ago it was the bankers, last year MPs and this year it is newspapers who are suffering from a massive crisis in public confidence. Yet without a relationship of trust with their readers, newspapers are nothing.”

Phone hacking, he says, is something that he had never come across in his own journalistic career, which has seen him land two Editor of the Year Awards.

“It was completely new to me,” he said.

“Because it is such a big scandal and has lasted so long, the public has the idea that every journalist at every newspaper was doing it.

“Yet the scandal, has so far almost exclusively revolved around one newspaper, that doesn’t exist any more.”

Would he have known if it was rife on his watch?

“It’s possible it could have happened,” he said. “But I would have hoped enough processes were in place at various levels, so if a story was presented the sources would be challenged.”

For senior editorial staff at News International not to have known what was going on, would stretch credulity to the absolute limit, he insists.

  • The September 17 debate starts at 2 pm and tickets cost £5. See woodstock literaryfestival.com.