Rupert Murdoch and the Corruption of the British Media

[Douglas Caddy]

Senior police officer 'gave NI executive details of phone-hacking inquiry'

The Independent

By Martin Hickman and Paul Peachey

Saturday, 25 February 2012

Rupert Murdoch's former chief executive, Rebekah Brooks, is at the centre of a new inquiry into whether a senior Scotland Yard officer gave her inside information about the progress of the original failed phone-hacking investigation, The Independent understands.

Two days before the launch of Mr Murdoch's new Sun on Sunday, the Independent Police Complaints Commission was examining the nature of an apparent link between the senior Metropolitan Police officer and an executive at News International.

The unnamed senior officer worked in 2006 on the original phone-hacking inquiry, which failed to follow-up evidence of widespread wrongdoing at NI's now-closed Sunday tabloid, the News of the World. The NI executive was not named by investigators but is understood to be Ms Brooks, who resigned as chief executive last July in the wake of revulsion at the NOTW's hacking of the mobile phone of the missing schoolgirl Milly Dowler. there is no suggestion that Ms Brooks is implicated in the investigation, other than as a witness. The Independent has been unable to reach Ms Brooks to confirm or deny the allegations. There is no suggestion at this stage that the officer was paid. Ms Brooks is being treated as a witness and a statement is expected to be taken.

Next week, the Leveson Inquiry into press standards will start to examine the entangled relationship between News International and London's police force, whose senior officers enjoyed close relationships with NI executives.

Fresh evidence emerged yesterdayof the extensive cover-up mounted by News International's executives to frustrate civil court cases against the company that suspected phone-hacking victims have brought forward.

Court papers show that NI began planning a mass deletion of emails in November 2009, three years after the Met raided the newspaper's royal editor Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire.

It accelerated months after the revelation that News International had authorised a £700,000 hush payment to a phone-hacking victim, Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Footballers' Association.

In November 2009, NI agreed a policy to "eliminate in a consistent manner across NI (subject to compliance with legal and regulatory requirements) emails that could be unhelpful in the context of future litigation in which an NI company is a defendant".

In an email dated 4 August 2010 – as the civil court actions mounted – a "senior executive" at NI emailed to explain "everyone needs to know that anything before January 2010 will not be kept".

The papers were released this week by a High Court judge, Mr Justice Vos, following the settlement of a civil case brought against NI by the singer Charlotte Church. That settlement saw off the last of the current round of "test cases" against NI – which would have resulted in NI's cover-up being picked over in the High Court next week.

Tomorrow Mr Murdoch will launch The Sun on Sunday, the NOTW's replacement, despite the recent arrests of 10 senior Sun staffers on suspicion of corruption. The staff deny the allegations.

The IPCC began its latest investigation after receiving a referral from Operation Elveden, the Met inquiry into the corruption of public officials. It had received the information from the Management Standards Committee, which is checking back through records at Wapping for evidence of wrongdoing on behalf of News Corp, NI's US-based parent company.

The information is believed to have been passed to the NI executive after Goodman and Mulcaire were arrested in August 2006. The IPCC will be seeking to establish whether the information was "legitimately" in the public domain, whether the officer committed a crime, or if he should face a charge of misconduct.

"At this stage there is no evidence to suggest any inappropriate payment, of any sort, having been made to the senior MPS officer," the IPCC said.

The officer has not been suspended from work within the Met's specialist operations section, which deals with counter-terrorism and protection for royalty and other public figures, but that is being kept under review. A Scotland Yard spokesman said the officer was not a member of operations Elveden, Weeting or Tuleta, which are respectively investigating inappropriate payments to officers, phone hacking and computer hacking. Two days after her resignation last July, Ms Brooks was arrested by the Met on suspicion of phone hacking. She has denied the allegations.

Ms Brooks' spokesman was unavailable for comment last night.

*Two men, aged 50 and 51, were arrested yesterday by officers from Scotland Yard's Operation Tuleta, the inquiry into computer hacking. The arrests in Hertfordshire and Surrey were not directly linked to any news organisation or the activities of journalists, police said.

Police officers to appear before Leveson

Two senior Scotland Yard officers who resigned over the phone- hacking scandal will give evidence to the Leveson inquiry into press ethics next week.

The former Commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, and Assistant Commissioner John Yates will feature on Thursday as the inquiry begins a new phase this week looking at relations between police and the press. The pair quit amid criticism of the way the force dealt with original allegations of hacking and failed to unearth the scale of wrongdoing.

Mr Yates is expected to give evidence by video-link from Bahrain where he is helping to overhaul policing following its brutal crackdown against anti-regime protesters last year.

[Douglas Caddy]

Sun on Sunday rises under Rupert Murdoch's watchful eye

Media chief launches female-friendly tabloid to replace News of the World as phone-hacking and corruption probes continue

By Dan Sabbagh

guardian.co.uk,

Saturday 25 February 2012 14.48 EST

Rupert Murdoch's Sun on Sunday is launched on S with a manifesto that attempts to set out a fresh agenda for the tabloid replacing the News of the World, which was closed by the media mogul last July.

Murdoch spent Saturday afternoon at the Sun's London headquarters as the newspaper before he headed off to see more than 3 million copies come off his printing presses just north of London.

Murdoch wants the title, edited by Dominic Mohan, to adopt a less strident, more female-friendly tone, as he hopes to regain market leadership on Sunday with a sale of at least 2 million – and preferably at or around 3 million. The Sun's six-day sale average is 2.75 million

He has also been closely involved in a seven-figure marketing campaign, pledging the Sunday newspaper to hold its reduced 50p price point to at least the end of the year. The News of the World cost £1, as did the Sunday Mirror and Daily Star Sunday before this weekend.

But as the new title arrived, there were allegations that former Sun editor Rebekah Brooks received details of the original failed phone-hacking investigation into the News of the World from a senior Metropolitan Police officer. There is no suggestion that the officer was paid or that Brooks is implicated in the investigation, being conducted by the IPCC police watchdog. A spokesman for Brooks – also a former chief executive of News International and close Murdoch ally – declined to comment.

At the same time, one of the Sunday Sun's columnists, Toby Young, author of How To Lose Friends & Alienate People, was embroiled in a Twitter controversy after writing about the hacking of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler – the revelation by the Guardian, which added to pressure to close the News of the World. "That murdered girl thing? Check the Guardian story. Turned out to be balls. Get off your high horse," he tweeted, in an online spat with Graham Linehan, writer of Channel 4's The IT Crowd.

The Guardian report that the then missing Milly Dowler's mobile was hacked by the News of the World has not been disputed. What the paper did correct was its report that the News of the World had been responsible for deleting voicemail messages left for her, giving her parents hope she was still alive.

Linehan responded that Young had an "amazing take on the Milly Dowler story. I guess you tell yourself that so you can go to sleep," and that Young should, "go away and start lying for the Sun. A marriage made in heaven".

Meanwhile, the Leveson inquiry is due to hear evidence from detective assistant commissioner Sue Akers about developments in the Elveden police inquiry into corrupt payments made to public officials by journalists, which has seen 10 Sun journalists arrested since last November.

Leveson will also hear from long-time Murdoch critic and former deputy prime minister John Prescott and former senior Met officer Brian Paddick. Both are expected to question the relationship between the Met – which had previously failed to investigate allegations of phone hacking comprehensively – and News International.

Meanwhile, Murdoch is spending freely on marketing the Sunday edition of a title he took over in 1969 and described this month as "part of me", on his return to the UK to announce the long-predicted launch. News International aired "The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow" adverts during every major ITV programme on Saturday night, and was fighting to hold off rival tabloid publishers by taking the 60-second spot just before ITV's evening news.

Columnists signed up in addition to Young include Katie Price, the model formerly known as Jordan, who said, "I'm writing to show people I'm not just boobs, lashes and fake tan"; the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu; Nancy Dell'Olio on fashion, and Jose Mourinho, the Real Madrid boss who will write on today's Carling Cup final.

But Murdoch is wary of promoting too heavily. Cardiff City are playing Liverpool, and memories of the Sun's coverage of the 1989 Hillsborough disaster may lead to a protest at the match

[Douglas Caddy]

http://news.sky.com/home/uk-news/article/16177012

[Douglas Caddy]

Exclusive: Was 'Sun on Sunday' brought forward to beat revelations?

'Jaw-dropping' testimonies expected as focus turns to police and public officials

The Independent

By James Hanning

Sunday, 26 February 2012

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/press/exclusive-was-sun-on-sunday-brought-forward-to-beat-revelations-7441050.html

Dramatic new evidence to the Leveson inquiry this week is expected to unleash a "bloodbath" of bitter recriminations between police and prosecution officials arguing over failings in a series of investigations into allegations of phone hacking, computer hacking and bribery by journalists.

News International (NI) insiders say that the launch of The Sun on Sunday, which appears today, only nine days after Rupert Murdoch's announcement it was to go ahead, was brought forward because to launch a new paper in the wake of fresh revelations would be virtually impossible. But last week a new bout of allegations undermined NI's attempt to seize the PR initiative. It was reported that emails were being deleted until 2010, and yesterday it was reported that the Independent Police Complaints Commission was looking into a claim that a senior NI figure was given a report from inside the Metropolitan Police on the progress of the original police investigation. The day before, court documents emerged showing the systematic deletion of emails relating to phone hacking.

The Leveson inquiry will this week begin to examine police-press relations, hearing evidence from the former deputy prime minister John Prescott, former deputy assistant Met commissioner Brian Paddick, former assistant commissioner John Yates, Andy Hayman who led the original inquiry former Metropolitan Police commissioners Sir Ian Blair and Sir Paul Stephenson and others.

They are expected to reopen old wounds and make a series of startling new allegations relating to widespread bribery of officials for stories. "It is jaw-dropping stuff," said one legal source familiar with the evidence. "We will see the most sensational developments yet." A second source claimed the allegations and counterallegations would result in a "bloodbath".

Revelations will include allegations that a web existed of corrupt public officials who received money from national newspapers, along with details of journalists who, over a period, have paid officials in one case well into six figures for stories.

Such allegations are certain to stoke fury at the failure of the original police inquiry in 2005/06 to unearth the full extent of unlawful behaviour. After the home of Glenn Mulcaire was raided, police collected several bin bags of evidence which revealed he had been repeatedly commissioned by many reporters. Despite this, NI persisted in its claims it was the work of just one "rogue reporter".

This failure to broaden the inquiry has given rise to accusations of an unhealthily close relationship between the police and NI. Two of those who have faced questions over the relationship with NI are John Yates and Andy Hayman. Mr Yates, who resigned last summer over the affair, is believed to be anxious to clear his name in the face of expected attempts to pin the blame on him. He has admitted shortcomings in the police investigation, but vehemently denies any personal impropriety, saying that the Director of Public Prosecutions set the bar impracticably high for securing a conviction for phone hacking, that counsel's advice gave him no reason to believe there was widespread wrongdoing and that terrorism had a more pressing claim on police resources.

Last year, friends revealed he was "incandescent" at the cursory nature of the search carried out by some of his colleagues which, friends said, resulted in him making inaccurate public statements.

It is believed that Mr Hayman, who led the original inquiry and went on to write a column for NI, will be scrutinised over the circumstances of his departure from the Met. His expenses have been the subject of much speculation, as have allegations of an affair. He, too, has vehemently denied wrongdoing.

Sources at the Met have privately expressed fury at the failure of NI to collaborate fully with the investigation, or to unearth anything in its own inquiries. "They pretended they were co-operating and they weren't," said one source. By seemingly helping the police, NI made it difficult for the police to ask a judge for a warrant for a more exhaustive search. Other serving officers in the Met have pointed fingers privately at the performance of the Crown Prosecution Service.

Yesterday, it was alleged that there were American phone numbers on the files of Glenn Mulcaire, which would be a significant development in terms of News Corps' attempt to move on from the scandal. Bloomberg website said that the numbers of the singer Charlotte Church's Los Angeles agent and New York publicist were found in Mulcaire's files. According to the report, the evidence is in the hands of the police in London.

Opponents of the Murdoch organisation have said that if evidence emerged of phone hacking in the US, the damage to News Corps would dwarf the UK-based damage. Insiders at the Leveson inquiry are also expecting more evidence to emerge about how much Mulcaire was paid and who exactly commissioned him, while previously unknown phone-hacking targets are expected to be identified.

The inquiry will hear from a number of victims of phone hacking, including the former deputy PM John Prescott and Lib-Dem deputy leader Simon Hughes. They are expected to relate how detectives mishandled their cases. Mr Prescott will reiterate his anger at the Metropolitan Police's failure to inform him his name and phone details had been found in Mulcaire's files. The police knew in 2006, for example, there was evidence that Tessa Jowell had had her phone hacked, yet she was not informed until years later.

"Leveson knows the victims were kept in the dark for far too long: he is absolutely determined to make sure they aren't kept in the dark a moment longer," one source told The Independent on Sunday last night.

The week ahead: Names due to appear before the inquiry

Monday Sue Akers, the Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) who is leading the inquiry into phone and email hacking and claims of bribery of public officials.

Brian Paddick, former deputy assistant commissioner, MPS, who claims his voicemail was hacked.

Lord Prescott, the former Labour Party deputy leader who also claimed his voicemail was hacked.

Tuesday Nick Davies, The Guardian journalist. Jacqui Hames, former MPS officer, and Crimewatch presenter.

MP Simon Hughes.

Chris Jeffries, the Bristol landlord, who falsely implicated in the murder of Jo Yeates.

Jane Winter, director of British Irish Rights Watch (to be confirmed)

Magnus Boyd, solicitor (to be read)

Wednesday Detective Inspector (MPS) Mark Maberley

Detective Chief Superintendent (MPS) Keith Surtees

Detective Sergeant Phillip Williams

Thursday Peter Clarke, former deputy assistant commissioner with specialist operations, MPS

Andy Hayman, former assistant commissioner, MPS

Sir Paul Stephenson, former Metropolitan Police Commissioner

John Yates, former assistant commissioner, MPS

Edited February 26, 2012 by Douglas Caddy

[John Simkin]

David Leigh

The Guardian, Monday 27 February 2012

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/feb/26/schools-crusade-gove-murdoch

On a freezing November day in 2010, the education secretary, Michael Gove, turned out in east London to inspect a desolate stretch of dockside ground near City airport, where Rupert Murdoch had offered to build an academy school.

The cabinet minister was accompanied by Rebekah Brooks, then News International chief executive, and an entourage of other top Murdoch staff, including James Harding and Will Lewis.

Despite the unprepossessing venue there was no mistaking the company's enthusiasm for the project. Murdoch described himself in a speech as the saviour of British education, thanks to his company's "adoption of new academies here in London".

It was a high-water mark of the love-in between Gove, Murdoch and the Conservative government. Gove, a former Times journalist, had previously gone out of his way to flatter his own proprietor, writing that Murdoch "encourages … free-thinking".

Shortly after the Docklands visit, the phone-hacking scandal disrupted these close relations. News International's proposed academy was quietly abandoned. Newham council says nothing was subsequently done to fulfil Murdoch's promises.

But Gove returned to his pro-Murdoch theme last week, publicly attacking the Leveson inquiry, set up in the wake of News International's misdeeds, as a threat to press freedom. "Whenever anyone sets up a new newspaper – as Rupert Murdoch has with the Sun on Sunday – they should be applauded and not criticised," he said.

It was a reminder of the extraordinarily close links that still exist between publishing tycoon and Tory politician. One of Murdoch's long-term projects is what he calls a "revolutionary and profitable" move by his media companies into online education. Gove would be a key figure in any attempt to penetrate the British schools market.

The education secretary meets Murdoch frequently and is an enthusiastic backer of the ideas of Joel Klein, the head of Murdoch's new education division. Within a week of his promotion in 2010, the minister was at dinner with Murdoch, according to officially released details of meetings.

The atmosphere could only have been warm. Gove once sang Murdoch's praises in a 1999 Times column as "the greatest godfather of mischief in print" who possesses "18th-century pamphleteering vigour". He wrote that Murdoch "encourages … free thinking. His newspapers … are driven by public demand and the creativity of chaotic, cock-snooking, individuals."

Murdoch in turn was kind to his former employee. When Gove first arrived at Westminster in 2005 as a backbench MP, the Times topped up his salary with a £60,000-a-year column. His wife still works for the paper.

Murdoch's publishing arm, HarperCollins, also gave Gove a book advance in 2004, when he was first selected for the safe Conservative seat of Surrey Heath. It was for a history of an obscure 18th-century politician, Viscount Bolingbroke.

Puzzlingly, the book was never delivered. HarperCollins refuses to disclose the size of the advance and its size is not specified in Gove's register of financial interests. Asked if his advance should be returned eight years later, HarperCollins says Gove "is still committed to writing a book on Bolingbroke but obviously his ministerial duties come first for now". Gove will not comment.

At the Gove dinner on 19 May 2010, Murdoch was accompanied by his then right-hand aide in Britain, Rebekah Brooks. Brooks was also with the education secretary at a second dinner three weeks later, on 10 June, for what his department terms "general discussion".

In a subsequent speech to the National College for School Leadership, Gove singled Joel Klein out for praise. Klein was a US lawyer then running the New York school system. But Klein was also Murdoch's own favourite US educator. His clashes with the teachers' unions and his enthusiasm for academy-style "charter schools" had caught the tycoon's interest. Murdoch planned to hire Klein himself.

Gove told his British audience on 16 June that US reformers such as Klein were insisting on "more great charter schools … free from government bureaucracy" because they were "amazing engines of social mobility".

Within 24 hours of that speech, the minister was once more at the lunch table with Murdoch himself, again with Brooks in attendance and, according to the department, other "News International executives and senior editors", for "general discussion".

At the end of summer 2010, Murdoch formally hired Klein for $2m (£1.3m) a year, plus a $1m signing bonus, to launch what he called a "revolutionary, and profitable, education division". Murdoch bought Wireless Generation, a US educational technology firm, for $360m, and gave it to Klein to run. Murdoch's vision was that he would digitise the world's so far unexploited classrooms. He told investors: "We see a $500bn sector in the US alone that is waiting desperately to be transformed by big breakthroughs." He envisaged some of News Corporation's large library of media content being beamed to pupils' terminals.

Gove seemed to be an enthusiast. He met Klein on 30 September 2010, before the announcement of his link-up with Murdoch. The Department for Education does not explain the circumstances, other than saying "more than 10 others" were present for a "general discussion".

The following month, Murdoch flew to London again, to deliver the Margaret Thatcher lecture at the Centre for Policy Studies. He called for a revolutionised education system in the UK "that really teaches … In the last decades, I'm afraid, most of the English-speaking world has spent more and more on education with worse and worse results".

He boasted: "That is why so many of my company's donations are devoted to the cause of education – including the adoption of new academies here in London. There is no excuse for the way British children are being failed" .

Gove was with Murdoch for the celebratory dinner afterwards, along with Murdoch's son James and all his editors. And in the new year, Klein flew to England along with Murdoch himself for three days spent at Gove's department. He was "visiting UK as guest of DfE to explain and discuss US education policy and success", say officials. Gove was photographed visiting the King Solomon academy with Klein, who addressed a free schools conference. Gove dined with Murdoch, and with Brooks yet again, at a dinner hosted by businessman Charles Dunstone, an academy sponsor.

On 19 May, Gove breakfasted with Murdoch in London. The tycoon flew on from that meeting to address a Paris conference of internet entrepreneurs. This time, he went into some detail about News Corp's plans for educational technology. He and Klein had been touring educational projects around the world, in South Korea, Sweden and California. Schools were the "last holdout from the digital revolution" he said. "Today's classroom looks almost exactly the same as it did in the Victorian age …The key is the software."

"I'd expect in the next [few] months we'd be making some acquisitions," Klein told the Financial Times. "There's the willingness to put in significant capital."

He cited the Khan Academy, a not-for-profit producer of educational videos through YouTube, as an example of how technology could add value.

On 16 June, Gove addressed the teachers' college in Birmingham on strikingly similar lines, calling for "technical innovation" in the classroom. He cited the "amazing revolution" of iTunes U in publishing lessons online. The same night, he dined with Rupert Murdoch yet again.

Four days later, Gove returned to the theme in another speech, praising News Corp's new hiring, Joel Klein, and urging his audience to read an "excellent article" Klein had written promoting charter schools.

Murdoch himself, returning to London, spoke at a conference of chief executives. The Times recorded: "Mr Murdoch detailed a vision whereby almost all children would be provided with technology such as specially designed tablet computers. He said that through such advances, 'You can get the very, very finest teachers in every course, in every subject, at every grade, and make them available to every child in the school – or if necessary, in some cases – in the world.'

"Mr Murdoch said that News Corporation, parent company of the Times, would help to spearhead this change by growing its business in providing educational material. He said he would be "thrilled" if 10% of News Corporation's business was made up of its education revenues in the next five years."

On 26 June, Gove was at yet another dinner with Murdoch. He followed it up with the most explicit endorsement to date of News Corp's education project in an address to the Royal Society entitled Technology in the Classroom. He even held up for praise Klein's favourite model, the Khan Academy, which was "putting high-quality lessons on the web".

He said: "We need to change curricula, tests and teaching to keep up with technology … Whitehall must enable these innovations but not seek to micromanage them. The new environment of teaching schools will be a fertile ecosystem for experimenting and spreading successful ideas rapidly through the system."

Murdoch's education project now began to falter, however, because of the looming British phone-hacking scandal. In the US, voices began to question the links between Klein and contracts awarded by the New York education department to Wireless Generation, the technology firm acquired by Murdoch. Klein and Murdoch's education division lost a hoped-for new $27m contract with the New York authorities.

Klein himself was catapulted into a central role in the company's attempts to firefight the scandal. He flew over to London to the parliamentary committee hearings in July. While all eyes were on Wendi Deng as she landed a punch on the foam-pie thrower who attacked her 80-year-old husband during the televised session, few noticed the dry legal figure sitting just behind her.

He now plays a key role in controlling the controversial management and standards committee (MSC) that is house-cleaning at News International by handing over journalists' incriminating emails to the police.

Until Murdoch's UK operation has been fully cleansed of its hacking toxicity, the way will not be open for Klein to resume his education projects, and his formerly close political links with Gove. But the end of the process of "draining the swamp", as one MSC source put it, may now be in sight.

Invited to respond to these issues, a Gove spokesman declined to comment.

[John Dolva]

from down under...

'Something is badly amiss when Qld bushies embrace Green Left Weekly'

Saturday, February 25, 2012 By Peter Boyle

Farmers joined with environmentalists to oppose the extension of a coalmine near Jondaryn, Queensland, on February 20. Photo: Max Reithmuller "Something is badly amiss when Queensland bushies embrace Green Left Weekly, and the opposite ends of the political fringe, the Greens and Bob Katter's Australian Party, find a common cause," began a February 22 editorial in Rupert Murdoch's The Australian, the only national daily newspaper in this country.

The Australian was furious at the growing urban and rural alliance that has come together against coal and coal seam gas (CSG) mining — an industry that is spreading like a cancer in many parts of the country, especially in Queensland and NSW. This is a broad alliance that GLW strongly supports.

As Liam Flenady, a Socialist Alliance candidate in the coming Queensland election, says in this issue: "The Queensland coal industry is already massive and is expanding rapidly. CSG companies are planning to drill 18,000 wells across the state.

"What this all means is that our food and water security is severely endangered. Farmers are mobilising against the incursions of the giant corporations onto their land and environmentalists are alarmed that precious natural habitat is being destroyed at a furious pace."

In last week's issue, we published an article by Jess Moore, a leading activist in Stop CSG Illawarra. The article refuted the claims made by the CSG mining companies in its multimillion-dollar advertising campaign called "We want CSG". Moore is also a member of the Socialist Alliance.

On February 23, Moore appeared on Channel 10 news. She spoke out against the approval of a CSG drilling site in Sydney's main water catchment.

"This approval advances a project that risks the drinking water of 4.3 million people in NSW," she said.

The Australian seemed horrified to report on February 21 that at a protest against a coalmine at Jondaryan on Queensland's Darling Downs the previous day, "An old bushie who'd brought his own chair leaned back in it and perused a copy of Green Left Weekly, a publication he was unfamiliar with."

If it horrifies The Australian, it must be a good thing.

There are quite a few "bushies" who subscribe to GLW and have become strong supporters of this fiercely independent media project. But there is always room for more. If you know a "bushie" (or indeed a "townie") who might appreciate getting a Green Left perspective every week, why not buy them a gift subscription today?

More and more people from all backgrounds are beginning to stand up against the corporate-profits-at-any-cost madness that Murdoch's media empire promotes through lies, manipulation and character assassination.

By supporting independent media projects like GLW you can make sure an alternative voice continues to be heard (and continues to alarm the Murdoch editors). ...

Edited February 27, 2012 by John Dolva

[Douglas Caddy]

Brooks and Coulson 'warned about widespread phone hacking in 2006'• Police source 'told then Sun editor of around 100 victims'

• Records 'suggested NI had paid Glenn Mulcaire over £1m'

• Email submitted to Leveson inquiry reveals Coulson briefing

By Vikram Dodd

guardian.co.uk,

Monday 27 February 2012 09.20 EST

Both Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson were warned as early as 2006 that there was evidence of widespread hacking at the News of the World, according to an email that was submitted in evidence to the Leveson inquiry.

The internal News International (NI) email shows an unnamed police source told Brooks there were between 100 and 110 "victims" while the News of the World was under criminal investigation for hacking phones in the royal household. She was also told there were records suggesting NI had paid more than £1m to Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator employed to carry out the hacking.

The email from NI lawyer Tom Crone to the then News of the World editor, Andy Coulson, sets out what the police knew and the steps they were planning to take in their first phone-hacking investigation. It was based on information that Crone says had been passed to him by Rebekah Brooks, then Wade, who was the editor of the Sun at the time. She had been News of the World editor before Coulson.

"They are confident they have Clive [Goodman] and [Mulcaire] bang to rights on the palace interception," says Crone's email to Coulson.

The email told Coulson that police had recovered payment records from News International to Mulcaire: "The only payment records they found were from News International … the News of the World retainer and other invoices. They said that over the period they looked at (going way back) there seemed to be over £1m of payments."

Both Brooks and Coulson have repeatedly denied they had any knowledge of phone hacking in the years after the successful prosecution of royal correspondent Goodman and Mulcaire in 2007, although Coulson resigned from his position to take what he termed "ultimate" responsibility.

The email was sent at 10.34am on 15 September 2006. Crone begins: "Andy, here's [what] Rebekah told me about info relayed to her by cops."

It then sets out 10 key developments about what the police had discovered after arresting Mulcaire and raiding his premises.

"Their purpose is to insure that when Glenn Mulcaire comes up in court the full case against him is there for the court to see (rather than just the present palace charges). All they are asking victims is 'did you give anyone permission to access your voicemail?' and if not 'do you wish to make a formal complaint?'," says the email.

"They are confident that … they can then charge Glenn Mulcaire in relation to those victims. They are keen that the charges should demonstrate the scale of Glenn Mulcaire's activities so they would feature victims from different areas of public life, politics, showbiz, etc."

The email shows that the police source had told Brooks that raids on Mulcaire's premises had recovered voice recordings and notes from them.

But the extensive email, read out by Robert Jay QC at the Leveson inquiry, also seems to show the officer had said the police investigation would be limited in scope: "They suggested that they were not widening the case to include other NoW people but would do so if they got direct evidence … say, NoW journos directly accessing the voicemails (this is what did for Clive)".

Another passage outlines the strength of the police case at that time: "They do have Glenn Mulcaire's phone records which show sequences of contacts with News of the World before and after accesses. Obviously they don't have the content of the calls so this is at best circumstantial."

The email goes on to say police knew the pattern of victims being targeted, and which ones detectives would visit. The email says police were "confident" five to 10 victims would co-operate with a prosecution of Mulcaire. The email ends by saying: "They are going to contact RW today to see if she wishes to take it further". RW most likely refers to Rebekah Wade.

[Douglas Caddy]

Police chief tells Leveson the Sun had 'culture of illegal payments' to sources

Sue Akers tells media ethics inquiry of newspaper's payment systems that hid identities of 'network of corrupted officials'

Read Sue Akers's full statement here (pdf)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/feb/27/sun-culture-illegal-payments-leveson

By David Leigh

guardian.co.uk,

Monday 27 February 2012 09.23 EST

Hours after Rupert Murdoch's defiant gamble of launching a Sunday edition of the Sun, the head of the police investigations into illegal behaviour by journalists spelled out startling details of what she called a "culture of illegal payments" at the title.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers told the Leveson inquiry that one public official received more than £80,000 in total from the paper, currently edited by Dominic Mohan. Regular "retainers" were apparently being paid to police and others, with one Sun journalist drawing more than £150,000 over the years to pay off his sources.

"The cases we are investigating are not ones involving the odd drink, or meal, to police officers or other public officials," she said. "Instead, these are cases in which arrests have been made involving the delivery of regular, frequent and sometimes significant sums of money to small numbers of public officials by journalists."

"A network of corrupted officials" was providing the Sun with stories that were mostly "salacious gossip", she said.

"There appears to have been a culture at the Sun of illegal payments, and systems have been created to facilitate such payments whilst hiding the identity of the officials receiving the money."

Akers's reference to the systematic nature of alleged corruption, and its endorsement by senior executives, will be a clear signal to the US department of justice that her allegations, if proved, fall squarely within the ambit of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Rupert Murdoch's US parent company, News Corporation, could face fines of hundreds of millions of dollars unless it can show it has co-operated vigorously with the authorities in rooting out malpractice.

Akers insisted in her testimony that, although she was dependent on News Corporation's management and standards committee (MSC) to turn over incriminating emails, she was confident the co-operation was working well and the MSC was independent of News International.

She said the investigation into bribery, Operation Elveden, was following Crown Prosecution Service advice to focus on cash payments and not on "more general hospitality, such as meals or drinks". These were specifically excluded from Elveden's terms of reference.

Her testimony contradicts claims by some Sun staff that the paper's journalists – 10 of whom have been arrested over corruption allegations – are being persecuted merely for buying lunch for contacts. After the arrests Mohan published a lengthy anti-police column in the Sun. Written by Murdoch veteran Trevor Kavanagh, it complained of a Soviet-style witch-hunt, and claimed vital press freedoms were under threat by the police raids.

Others claimed the MSC was endangering the sanctity of journalists' sources by turning over information to the police.

Akers told the inquiry that the MSC was handling police requests for information "in a manner that seeks to protect legitimate journalist sources at all times. Our aim is to uncover criminality. It is not to uncover legitimate sources."

The MSC was redacting information about sources before handing it over unless there was an "evidential base" to justify attempts to identify the public official concerned.

She said one police officer from the specialist operations division had been identified "who was seeking payments from journalists with the NoW". He had been arrested last December. But the investigation of two NoW journalists suspected of bribery had so far failed to identify any police they may have paid.

Akers said the move to investigate the Sun as well as the NoW was the MSC's idea. "This review had not been requested by the [Metropolitan police]."

Far from wanting to put the Sun out of business, she said, police had agreed to carry out arrests on a Saturday, when no daily journalists were working.

The emails turned over by the MSC had led to the arrest so far of 10 Sun journalists, two police officers, a member of the Ministry of Defence, an army officer and the relative of a public official "acting as a conduit to hide a cheque payment".

Akers said the 61-strong Elveden investigation was still at a relatively early stage in trying to identify the recipients of illicit cash: "The emails indicate that payments to 'sources' were openly referred to within the Sun … there is a recognition by the journalists that this behaviour is illegal, reference being made to staff 'risking losing their pension or job', to the need for 'care' and to the need for 'cash payments'. There is also an indication of 'tradecraft', ie hiding cash payments to 'sources' by making them to a friend or relative of the source."

Murdoch gave a statement after Akers's evidence saying: "She [Akers] said the evidence suggested such payments were authorised by senior staff at the Sun.

"As I've made very clear, we have vowed to do everything we can to get to the bottom of prior wrongdoings in order to set us on the right path for the future. That process is well under way.

"The practices Sue Akers described at the Leveson inquiry are ones of the past, and no longer exist at the Sun. We have already emerged a stronger company

Edited February 28, 2012 by Douglas Caddy

[Douglas Caddy]

Nearly 250 victims to sue over News of the World hacking

Up to 244 more victims of phone hacking are to sue the publisher of the News of the World, with court hearings set to continue until next year, it has emerged.

Daily Telegraph

By Gordon Rayner, Chief Reporter

1:38PM GMT 27 Feb 2012

Mr Justice Vos, the High Court judge who is dealing with damages claims by hacking victims, was told today that 14 more people have issued writs against News Group Newspapers, and another 180 have contacted solicitors with a view to doing the same.

NGN, which has set up a compensation scheme for victims, has been contacted directly by around 50 people, taking the total to 244, though some of the 50 may also be among the 180 people who have contacted lawyers.

Mr Justice Vos has set a trial date for Feb 18 next year for any claims that have not been settled out of court by then.

To date, around 60 victims of phone hacking have reached settlements with NGN, including Charlotte Church and her parents, who accepted £600,000 in damages and costs today.

Among the 14 new cases who have filed writs in recent weeks are Cherie Blair, Nigel Farage, the leader of UKIP, and Colin Stagg, who was wrongly accused of murdering a young mother, Rachel Nickell.

The others include Eimear Cook, the former wife of the golfer Colin Montgomerie, Jamie Theakston, the broadcaster, James Blunt, the singer, and the footballers Kieron Dyer and Peter Crouch.

Crouch’s ex-girlfriend Abbie Clancy, Jade Goody’s ex-boyfriend Jeff Brazier, Duncan Foster, a former director of Coronation Street, and the former boxer Chris Eubank and his ex-wife Karron Stephen-Martin have also lodged court papers.

Mr Justice Vos said NGN appeared to be making “superhuman efforts” to avoid any of the cases going to trial, but set the date in February 2013 for any litigants who fail to reach out-of-court settlements.

Although 60 people have settled claims, five more cases are set to go to trial later this year, including claims by Ryan Giggs, the footballer, and Paul Burrell, the former royal butler, who have been unable to reach agreements with NGN.

Giggs and Mr Burrell were among dozens of litigants who lodged court papers before a cut-off date for the first batch of cases in October last year.

The Metropolitan Police has identified 829 potential victims of phone hacking from notebooks kept by Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator who was paid hundreds of thousands of pounds by the News of the World to intercept voicemails. Of those, 231 are said to be uncontactable.

It means that even if the 244 new cases are dealt with, NGN could still face claims from almost 350 more people who have been contacted by Scotland Yard and told they are potential victims of phone hacking.

Michael Silverleaf QC, for NGN, told the High Court that out of approximately 50 people who have contacted News Group directly, the company has accepted responsibility for 20 victims, with the others yet to be decided.

[Douglas Caddy]

Inquiry Leader Says Murdoch Papers Paid Off British Officials

The New York Times

By SARAH LYALL

February 27, 2012

LONDON — The officer leading a police investigation into Rupert Murdoch’s British newspapers said on Monday that reporters and editors at The Sun tabloid had over the years paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for information not only to police officers but also to a “network of corrupted officials” in the military and the government.

The officer, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers, said that e-mail records obtained by the police showed that there was a “culture at The Sun of illegal payments” that were authorized “at a very senior level within the newspaper” and involved “frequent and sometimes significant sums of money” paid to public officials in the Health Ministry and the prison service, among other agencies.

The testimony was a sharp new turn in a months-long judicial investigation of the behavior of Murdoch-owned and other newspapers, known as the Leveson inquiry. It detailed financial transactions that showed both the scale and the scope of alleged bribes, the covert nature of their payment and the seniority of newspaper executives accused of involvement.

The testimony may prove damaging to the News Corporation, the American-based parent of Mr. Murdoch’s media empire, if it gives ammunition to the F.B.I. and other agencies that are investigating the company for possible prosecution under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Until now, the Leveson inquiry delved primarily into questions of unlawful accessing of private voice mail and e-mail by tabloid journalists. That scandal that forced the company to shut down The News of the World, Mr. Murdoch’s flagship Sunday tabloid, in July 2011; it was replaced last weekend by a new Sunday version of The Sun, which published its first issue hours before the latest hearings of the Leveson inquiry. In a statement, Mr. Murdoch, the head of News Corporation whose British subsidiary owns The Sun and other major newspapers here, did not specifically deny the allegations made by Ms. Akers. Rather, it focused on the company’s response: “As I’ve made very clear, we have vowed to do everything we can to get to the bottom of prior wrongdoings in order to set us on the right path for the future. That process is well underway. The practices Sue Akers described at the Leveson inquiry are ones of the past, and no longer exist at The Sun. We have already emerged a stronger company.”

In recent weeks, a number of senior journalists from The Sun have been arrested on suspicion of making illegal payments to officials, and Ms. Akers said that the activities had been carried out by “the arrested journalists.”

Ms. Akers said that the payments from The Sun went far beyond the occasional lunch or dinner, with one public official receiving more than $125,000 over several years, and a single journalist being allocated more than $238,000 in cash to pay sources, including government officials.

It was clear from references in the e-mail messages — to staff members’ “risking losing their pension or job” and to the need for “tradecraft” like keeping the payments secret or making payments to friends or relatives of the officials — that the journalists in question knew that the payments were illegal, Ms. Akers said.

“Systems have been created to facilitate such payments whilst hiding the identity of the officials receiving the money,” she said. “The e-mails indicate that payments to ‘sources’ were openly referred to within The Sun, with the category of public official being identified, rather than the individual’s identity.”

She added: “Some of the initial e-mails reveal, upon further detailed investigation, multiple payments to individuals of thousands of pounds. There is also mention in some e-mails of public officials being placed on ‘retainers,’ and this is a line of inquiry currently being investigated.”

None of the journalists have been formally charged. At first, they were suspended by The Sun pending the investigation. But in a bold move this month, Mr. Murdoch swept in to London, reinstated all of the suspended Sun employees and said that News International, the British newspaper branch of his company, News Corporation, would pay all of their legal bills.

He also announced the plans to publish the new Sunday newspaper to replace The News of the World, which was closed in July when it became clear that it had routinely and illegally hacked into the voicemail messages of celebrities, sports stars, politicians and crime victims as a way to obtain stories.

After the first edition of The Sun on Sunday, Mr. Murdoch declared in a message on Twitter that it had sold about 3 million copies.

The damaging revelations on Monday were not limited to The Sun, but extended to The News of the World.

According to a lawyer for the Leveson Inquiry, Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of News International, was told explicitly by the police in 2006 that at least 100 people, including politicians and sports stars, had had their phones hacked by a private investigator working for The News of the World.

Details of Ms. Brooks’s conversation with the police were revealed in an e-mail sent on Sept. 11, 2006, from a News International lawyer to the editor of The News of the World, Andy Coulson, the lawyer told the inquiry. According to the e-mail, Ms. Brooks was informed that police had evidence that the investigator, Glenn Mulcaire, appeared to have been paid more than $1.5 million by News International for his hacking work over a period of years.

The revelation is hugely significant because it speaks to one of the crucial questions in the hacking inquiry that has swept through Mr. Murdoch’s British tabloids: who knew what, and when. Until 2010, Ms. Brooks, Mr. Coulson, Mr. Crone and a bevy of other News International officials repeatedly declared that phone hacking at The News of the World was limited to a single “rogue reporter” — the royal correspondent, Clive Goodman, who was jailed along with Mr. Mulcaire in 2007.

According to the e-mail, though, Ms. Brooks was told that the list of victims of Mr. Mulcaire’s hacking work included politicians, sports stars and celebrities — people Mr. Goodman would have had no reason to write about. And it said she was told that while police investigators had no direct recordings of News of the World employees hacking victim’s voicemails, they did have phone records showing that Mr. Mulcaire had had frequent “sequences of contacts” with The News of the World before and after accesses.

Speaking of the continuing police investigations, Ms. Akers said: “We are nearer the start than the finish on this inquiry and there remain a number of persons of interest. These include journalists and public officials.”

In connection with a separate inquiry into phone hacking by British journalists, the Welsh singer Charlotte Church announced on Monday that she had agreed to settle her lawsuit against News International, the British newspaper subsidiary of News Corporation, for a payment of about $950,000 — much more than the company paid in earlier settlements with targets of phone hacking. The case may be a sign that the litigation over phone hacking will cost the company more than some analysts have assumed.

Alan Cowell contributed reporting.

[Douglas Caddy]

News Corp: threat of US legal action raised in light of 'illegal payment' claim

Fresh allegations increase likelihood of News Corp being prosecuted under Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, experts say

By Dominic Rushe in New York

guardian.co.uk,

Monday 27 February 2012 14.46 EST

Fresh allegations of a "culture of illegal payments" at the Sun newspaper have significantly increased the likelihood that US authorities will prosecute News Corp, according to legal experts.

US authorities are considering bringing action against Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, the Sun's parent company, under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), legislation that allows officials to go after US firms alleged to have bribed foreign officials. If found guilty, News Corp faces a possible court case and hundreds of millions in fines.

This week, Metropolitan police deputy assistant commissioner Sue Akers told the Leveson inquiry, which is inquiring into the state of the British press following the phone-hacking scandal, that there was a "culture of illegal payments" at the Sun to a "network of corrupted officials".

The Sun and its former sister paper the News of the World are owned by News International, a wholly owned subsidiary of News Corp, the US media gaint that owns Fox, the Wall Street Journal and a controlling stake in Sky, among other assets.

"This is obviously a very significant development with regards to the likelihood of a US prosecution," said Mark MacDougall, partner in the Washington office of the law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld and a former federal prosecutor. "If the British authorities are articulating a pattern, a defined scheme, to bribe officials, that is a very big deal."

The latest allegations significantly increase the likelihood of an FCPA action, said Mike Koehler, professor of business law at Butler University and author of the FCPA Professor blog.

"Last July, when we first started talking about this, there was one newspaper, the News of The World, and one category of foreign official, the police. Now we have another newspaper and a much broader category of foreign officials," said Koehler.

"The evidence seems to suggest that there was a recognition that these payments may have been illegal and the notion that there were attempts to disguise the nature of these payments," said Koehler. These elements would fall under the remit of the FCPA.

The original investigation centered on payment to police officers, and there had been some argument that the police did not fit the FCPA's definition of "foreign government officials".

Tom Fox, a Houston-based lawyer who specialises in FCPA cases and anti-corruption law, said Akers' allegations that payments had been made to "police, military, government, prison and health and others" had destroyed that argument.

"Speaking of a culture of corruption is really bad," said Fox. "There are two main types of FCPA case. In the first, a company has policies in place but fails to detect corruption. The second is far worse. And that's when there is a programme in place and you ignore it."

Koehler said any prosecution was most likely under the "books and records and internal control provisions" of the FCPA. "If a company is misrepresenting payments or has insufficient internal controls to stop illegal payments before they occur, [FCPA officials] will take action," he said.

In Akers' testimony, she claimed there were systems in place at the Sun to hide the identity of sources, and evidence to suggest those making the payments realised what they were doing was wrong.

FCPA experts said the mounting evidence was also likely to put paid to arguments that the payments were too small and localised an issue to trigger a full FCPA case.

In several recent cases brought by top US financial watchdog the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), action was taken against foreign subsidiaries because their accounts were consolidated with a US parent company.

In February Smith & Nephew, a UK-based medical supplies company, paid $22m to settle charges that it had made "illicit payments to public doctors employed by government hospitals or agencies in Greece". S&N was hit by an FCPA action because it consolidated its accounts with its Memphis-based US subsidiary.

Last April, New York-based Comverse Technology settled charges that it had violated the FCPA's books and records and internal controls provisions for payments made thorough an Israeli subsidiary.

Koehler said the majority of FCPA cases were now being brought on books and record-keeping, as they were easier to prove. "The allegation that the subsidiaries' problematic books and records were consolidated with the parent company issuer's books and records for purposes of financial reporting is made in nearly every SEC FCPA enforcement action," he said.

FCPA experts said investigators would now be looking for any similar evidence of payments that could violate FCPA rules in other News Corp markets like Australia.

MacDougall said the investigations could also have ramifications fro News Corp in the US. "If any of this decision-making was made in the US, or if information flowed into the US outlets then that significantly increases exposure for those involved," he said.

MacDougal said that there were a variety of statutes under US law that prosecutors could consider should they find direct US involvement in the case. "US prosecutors powers are very broad, and necessarily so," he said.

But no case is likely to be brought against the firm soon. Koehler said typically it takes two to four years before the US authorities feel they have thoroughly exhausted an FCPA inquiry and decided whether or not to press charges

[Douglas Caddy]

Sun established 'network of corrupted officials', Sue Akers tells Leveson

Police officer leading investigation into bribery and hacking at News International tells inquiry of 'culture of illegal payments'

By Dan Sabbagh

guardian.co.uk,

Monday 27 February 2012 16.13 EST Article history

Rupert Murdoch's flagship tabloid, the Sun, established a "network of corrupted officials" and created a "culture of illegal payments", the police officer leading the investigation into bribery and hacking at News International has alleged.

On a day of dramatic developments surrounding the investigations into the tycoon's newspapers, Sue Akers, the deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan police, told the Leveson inquiry into press standards there had been "multiple payments" by the Sun to public officials of thousands of pounds, and one individual received £80,000 in alleged corrupt payments over a number of years. One Sun journalist drew more than £150,000 over the years to pay sources.

Akers's intervention – a day after the Sun launched a Sunday edition – was designed to rebut criticism of her investigation by Sun veterans, unhappy that 10 reporters and executives from the tabloid had been arrested since last November.

She said Sun reporters largely published "salacious gossip" on the back of the information received. The cases her team were investigating were not ones involving the "odd drink or meal" with public officials, but regular payments using an internal system designed to hide the identity of those allegedly receiving money illegally.

In other developments:

• The Leveson inquiry was also told of an internal News International email that showed how much Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks were told about News of the World phone hacking in 2006, which contrasted with public statements of ignorance made by both former editors of the Sunday tabloid subsequently.

• Charlotte Church, the singer, agreed a £600,000 settlement from News International for phone hacking, including £300,000 in costs.

• It emerged that more than 200 further alleged victims of phone hacking, ranging from former boxer Chris Eubank to the Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, are making claims against News International.

• Lord Justice Leveson took aim at Michael Gove, the education secretary and former Times journalist, who had said that the inquiry, launched by David Cameron last summer, was having a "chilling effect" on Fleet Street. The judge said that he believed in freedom of speech and freedom of the press, but added that journalism must obey the rule of law and act in the public interest.

Murdoch himself is understood to have studied Akers's incendiary testimony, and issued a short statement a couple of hours afterwards. He said: "As I've made very clear, we have vowed to do everything we can to get to the bottom of prior wrongdoings in order to set us on the right path for the future. That process is well underway. The practices Sue Akers described at the Leveson inquiry are ones of the past, and no longer exist at the Sun. We have already emerged a stronger company." News International insiders also said the Sun had tightened up its system for cash payments last summer, with any such payments now having to be signed off by the title's editor, Dominic Mohan.

Murdoch was otherwise in a buoyant mood, tweeting about the Sun on Sunday's debut sales. "Amazing! The Sun confirmed sale of 3,260,000 copies yesterday," he wrote, as buyers ignored the corruption allegations to pick up the newspaper that immediately became the market leader on Sunday. Sales of rival red top titles slumped by between 15% and 30%, with the nearest challenger, the Sunday Mirror, down to 1.3m from a January average of 1.75m.

Akers was the first witness in the second part of the Leveson inquiry, which aims to examine the relationship between the press and the police. Earlier in the morning, Robert Jay QC, counsel to the inquiry, read out an email dated September 2006 – five weeks after the Sunday tabloid's royal editor Clive Goodman and a private investigator, Glenn Mulcaire, had been arrested on hacking charges – which detailed how much Brooks and Coulson were told about phone hacking. Brooks was then editor of the Sun and she had been editor of the News of the World. Coulson was editor of the News of the World at that time and was later David Cameron's director of communications in No 10.

The note was written by Tom Crone, the former chief lawyer at the Sun and the News of the World, and was sent to Coulson, based on information received from the police by Brooks. Crone warned Coulson that the police had Goodman and Mulcaire "bang to rights" on illegally intercepting voicemails of Buckingham Palace staff – and that the police had discovered a list of "100-110 victims" on the basis of evidence seized from Mulcaire's home.

Coulson was also told police had found records of payments to Mulcaire from News International worth over £1m.

Goodman and Mulcaire pleaded guilty in November 2006 and were jailed in January 2007, at which time Coulson resigned his editorship, four months after the Crone email. At that time Coulson said that while he knew nothing of hacking he took "ultimate responsibility" for what had happened. He used a similar formula in 2009 when he was working for the Conservatives, telling a parliamentary committee: "I have never condoned the use of phone hacking and nor do I have any recollection of incidences where phone hacking took place ... I took full responsibility at the time for what happened but without my knowledge and resigned."

Brooks also repeatedly denied that she, or anybody within News International, knew about the extent of phone hacking at the News of the World in the years after the Goodman and Mulcaire convictions.

Responding to the first reports by the Guardian in July 2009 that hacking was more widespread than the activities of a single "rogue reporter", she wrote to the Commons culture committee to say: "The Guardian coverage has, we believe, substantially and likely deliberately misled the British public."

[Steve Knight]

OK, did anyone from the UK here actually buy and/or read News of the World MK2, aka Sun on Sunday?

Lol? SOS? SOLD OUR SOULS!

[Douglas Caddy]

Met failed to tell MP of extent of phone hacking commissioning, inquiry hears

Simon Hughes says police had evidence seeming to indicate 'at least three' NoW staff asked Mulcaire to access his voicemail

By Lisa O'Carroll

guardian.co.uk,

Tuesday 28 February 2012 09.30 EST

Scotland Yard failed to tell a senior Liberal Democrat MP for five years that police had evidence in their possession that appeared to indicate that "at least three" News of the World journalists were involved in commissioning the hacking of his phones by a private investigator.

Notes seized by the Metropolitan police from the home of Glenn Mulcaire in 2006 contained detailed information about Simon Hughes's telephone numbers and the names of three journalists in the margins of the notes, referring to reporters who are thought to have commissioned the investigator's hacking work.

However, giving evidence to the Leveson inquiry, Hughes said he was never shown any of Mulcaire's notes about him when he was told by police his phone messages had been intercepted in October 2006. He was only shown the notes by police at a meeting on May 25 2011, and was "shocked" at the level of personal detail they contained.

Back in 2006, the police were preparing a case against the News of the World's royal editor Clive Goodman and Mulcaire, both of whom were sentenced to jail for phone hacking-related offences in January 2007.

"I find it impossible to find a good explanation for why that happened," said Hughes who said there had been "significant failure" on the part of the police. When Hughes asked detectives in 2006 whether other journalists were involved in phone hacking, he was told that the investigation was not proceeding against anybody else.

The MP added in his written statement: "I suspect that the police had shut down this investigation, much to the delight of News Group (publishers of the News of the World), and ignored evidence of long-standing and widespread criminality. I do not know of any good or persuasive reason why this should be, and it makes me extremely suspicious."

Hughes was one of a group of five non-royal phone-hacking victims to be selected to support the police case in the Mulcaire and Goodman trial but said it wasn't until he was approached by police last year that he discovered the extent of evidence against the News of the World. Others included PR man Max Clifford and Gordon Taylor, chief of the Professional Footballers' Association.

"There was no prosecution against anybody other than Clive Goodman, and Clive Goodman only because of his work with the royal family, whereas there was a whole range of people clearly acting in concert, either directly or indirectly, illegally, and they were not touched," he said.

Hughes told Leveson he was "surprised and disappointed" that only two people were taken to court not just because there were three people allegedly involved in ordering phone hacking apart from Clive Goodman, but that there was also evidence from Mulcaire's notes that there were hundreds of victims outside the handful the police were using in the trial in 2006.

"Clearly employees were engaged, and therefore the whole panoply of other people, who it now appears had their voicemails hacked on the instructions of people in News of the World, were not in any way used as evidence against the employees," he added.

Hughes also told Leveson that Goodman and Mulcaire were tried on the basis that the private investigator had received £12,300 for his services. But it now appears the police had evidence that Mulcaire could have received up to £1m. This figure emerged at the Leveson inquiry on Monday and is far higher than previous information on Mulcaire's earnings from his alleged phone hacking and blagging activities.

It emerged last week from evidence disclosed after an application from the Guardian that Mulcaire earned about £100,000 a year between 2001 and 2006.

Today Hughes disclosed a new table of alleged payments to Mulcaire which show he may have earned anything from £775,786 to £849,470 from News International between 1999 and 2007 – far more than was disclosed to the court at the time of Mulcaire's trial.

"The court sentenced Goodman and Mulcaire on the basis that £12,300 was the known transaction payment. It is clear from here and clear, as counsel knows, from other evidence, that there was at least £500,000 of certain payment by News of the World to Mulcaire," Hughes told Leveson.

The Lib Dem MP said Mulcaire's notebooks showed that the News of the World had tried to stand up stories

[Douglas Caddy]

Phone hacking: six News of the World staff instructed Mulcaire, papers allege

Court documents submitted on behalf of hacking victims allege 'conspiracy' between private investigator and senior executives

By Lisa O'Carroll and David Leigh

guardian.co.uk,

Tuesday 28 February 2012 07.03 EST

Six journalists at the News of the World were involved in instructing private investigator Glenn Mulcaire to hack phones of celebrities and others, it has been alleged in documents released by the high court to the Guardian.

Paperwork submitted on behalf of phone-hacking victims by lawyers shed new light on the alleged extent of knowledge within the newspaper about the activities of Mulcaire, the £2,000-a-week investigator at the centre of the scandal.

It has been alleged in these court documents that there was "a conspiracy" between Mulcaire and "senior executives" including "Clive Goodman" and five other journalists, known as A, B, C, D, and E, whereby he would obtain information on their behalf using "electronic intelligence and eavesdropping".

Up until now only one News of the World journalist, the former royal editor Clive Goodman, has been charged and sentenced to prison in relation to phone-hacking offences. In the latest Weeting investigation other journalists from the News of the World have since been arrested on suspicion of phone hacking.

The claim submitted on behalf of phone-hacking victims also allege that Mulcaire was on a contract with the paper between 2001 and 2006 worth up to £105,000 a year.

Under the initial contract, signed on September 2001, the victims allege, Mulcaire was paid £1,770 a week, or £92,000 a year, for services provided by a company he controlled, called Euro Research and Information Services.

His fees were allegedly increased in 2003 when Mulcaire asked for an extra £250 a week to extend his services beyond 9am to 5pm and to cover "emergency calls outside these hours".

In February 2005, a separate contract was allegedly signed to pay Mulcaire (in the name of Paul Williams) £7,000 for a story about the Professional Footballers' Association boss Gordon Taylor, who subsequently won a £425,000 claim for phone hacking from News International.

In July that year, a fresh contract between Mulcaire and News of the World was drawn up, this time in the name of Nine Consultancy Limited. Under this agreement it is claimed the private investigator was paid £2,019 a week, or £104,988 a year.

The documents detailing the alleged contracts were obtained by the Guardian and were released in redacted form last week. Some of these redactions have now been removed following a further hearing at the high court on Monday.

The unredacted passages in the documents submitted in the name of "voicemail claimant" for the purpose of a generic trial, allege that Mulcaire also agreed to "provide daily transcripts of voicemail messages" to News of the World journalists.

Last week it emerged that News International took active steps to delete and prepare to delete the publisher's email archives as phone-hacking allegations and lawsuits against the owner of the News of the World mounted in 2009 and developed in 2010.

According to court documents filed by victims of hacking, the publisher allegedly produced an email deletion policy in November 2009 whose aim was to "eliminate in a consistent manner" emails "that could be unhelpful in the context of future litigation".

Crime reporters at the News of the World in the past were explicitly expected to pay police officers, one of them has publicly disclosed for the first time.

Jeff Edwards told the BBC that when he refused to do so, he was transferred out of his job.

Edwards, who later became a long-serving crime reporter for the Daily Mirror, told BBC Newsnight: "Between 1980 and 1985 I was employed at the News of the World as their crime correspondent and I was actually removed from my post because of my complete reluctance and refusal to pay police officers."

He said he was explicitly told that was the reason: "I was removed from that post ... Shortly after that I got another job somewhere else."

Edwards said: "There was always, I thought at the NoW, a deeply rooted culture of underhandedness, of corrupt practice. I had come in from London evening newspapers where there was no history, no tradition of that sort of behaviour. I built my reputation on doing the job transparently, honestly, by being an honest broker. I knew to an extent what I was entering and I was hoping to be able to change things but that wasn't the case at all."

Edwards did not say who had ordered him to be transferred or who asked him to pay police.