Rupert Murdoch and the Corruption of the British Media

[Douglas Caddy]

Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks to be charged over phone hacking

PM's former aide and ex-News International chief will face charges in connection with hacking of Milly Dowler's phone

By Vikram Dodd

guardian.co.uk,

Tuesday 24 July 2012 09.40 EDT

British prosecutors say they have the evidence to prove there was a criminal conspiracy at Rupert Murdoch's News of the World newspaper involving former senior executives, including Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks, to hack the phones of more than 600 people including the murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler.

Announcing the charging of eight people over the phone-hacking scandal on Tuesday, prosecutors alleged the tabloid's targets ranged from a victim of the 7 July 2005 terrorist attacks to celebrities and senior Labour politicians.

Coulson left the editorship of the News of the World in 2007 after a journalist and private investigator were convicted of phone hacking, and would go on to be appointed as director of communications for the Conservative party. After the 2010 election Coulson worked in Downing Street for David Cameron, who said he deserved a "second chance", as one of the prime minister's most senior advisers, before Coulson resigned as renewed controversy over phone hacking grew.

Prosecutors say other victims of hacking include former senior Labour cabinet ministers such as the former deputy prime minister John Prescott, two former home secretaries, David Blunkett and Charles Clarke, and the former culture secretary Tessa Jowell.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said it would charge Coulson and the former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks in relation to the hacking of Milly Dowler's phone. The allegations about the hacking of the murdered schoolgirl's phone led Murdoch to decide to shut down the News of the World in 2011.

Also charged over phone hacking are Stuart Kuttner, former managing editor of the News of the World, Ian Edmondson, former news editor, Greg Miskiw, another former news editor, Neville Thurlbeck, former chief reporter, James Weatherup, former assistant news editor, and the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire.

Alison Levitt QC, principal legal adviser to the director of public prosecutions, announced the decision on Tuesday.

She said the charges related to allegations of phone hacking from 3 October 2000 to August 2006. The CPS alleges that more than 600 people were victims.

Levitt said: "All, with the exception of Glenn Mulcaire, will be charged with conspiring to intercept communications without lawful authority, from 3 October 2000 to 9 August 2006. The communications in question are the voicemail messages of well-known people and/or those associated with them. There is a schedule containing the names of over 600 people who the prosecution will say are the victims of this offence."

The CPS said victims included Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, the celebrity chef Delia Smith, the actors Jude Law, Sadie Frost, Sienna Miller, Wayne Rooney, Sir Paul McCartney and his former wife Heather Mills, Sven-Goran Eriksson, the former England manager, and the former trade union leader Andrew Gilchrist. Another alleged victim is Prof John Tulloch, who was left bloody and burnt after the worst ever terrorist attacks on the UK mainland in July 2005, targeting London's transport system.

Levitt said police would contact those who the CPS says were victims, and then publish their names.

Brooks faces two additional charges over conspiracy to hack Gilchrist's voicemails. She is also accused over the Dowler voicemails, along with Coulson, Kuttner, Miskiw, Thurlbeck and Mulcaire.

Coulson also faces additional charges relating to Blunkett and Clarke's voicemails, as well as those of Calum Best.

Miskiw faces nine further charges, the CPS said. Edmondson faces a further 11 charges, Thurlbeck seven, and Weatherup seven.

Mulcaire is charged over the voicemails of four people: Milly Dowler, Gilchrist, Smith and Clarke.

To bring charges, the CPS must be satisfied that prosecution is in the public interest, and that there is a realistic prospect of a jury being convinced of the evidence beyond all reasonable doubt.

Levitt said she had also considered CPS interim guidelines on the prosecution of journalists, which says that if stories being pursued are in the public interest, that is a factor against charging.

Brooks, a friend of the prime minister to such an extent that they texted each other, issued a statement denying all the charges against her. She is a former editor of the News of the World, and of the Sun, after which she was selected to run Murdoch's UK publishing interests. She said: "I am not guilty of these charges. I did not authorise, nor was I aware of, phone hacking under my editorship. I am distressed and angry that the CPS have reached this decision when they knew all the facts and were in a position to stop the case at this stage. The charge concerning Milly Dowler is particularly upsetting, not only as it is untrue but also because I have spent my journalistic career campaigning for victims of crime. I will vigorously defend these allegations."

Coulson said he never had done anything to harm the Milly Dowler investigation and would "fight these allegations". "The idea I would sit in my office dreaming up schemes that would undermine investigations is simply untrue," he said.

Thurlbeck also denied the charges. "I will vigorously fight to clear my reputation," he said.

The Labour leader, Ed Miliband, said: "Everybody was very shocked at the revelations of the hacking of Milly Dowler's phone. We said at the time we needed to get to the bottom of what had happened. It is now right that justice takes its course. This is now a matter for the courts."

In the years following the 2007 conviction of one of its journalists for phone hacking the royal household, News International insisted the practice was limited to one rogue reporter.

The charging decisions follow a Scotland Yard investigation that began last year, after police had repeatedly said for over a year that there was no need to reopen the investigation.

In July 2009, the Guardian began running a series of articles that claimed phone hacking was more widespread than previously admitted.

On Monday, police said they believed there were 4,775 potential victims of phone hacking, of whom 2,615 had been notified. The Metropolitan police deputy assistant commissioner Sue Akers told the Leveson inquiry her force had notified more than 702 people who were "likely" to have been victims.

The CPS has received files from the Met's Operation Weeting team covering 13 individuals, including 11 journalists from the News of the World and Mulcaire.

The CPS said three of the 13 would not face charges, and added they had not made a decision on two people at the request of the police, who want to make further inquiries.

The previous phone-hacking investigation has been criticised as being insufficiently thorough.

The Met says it launched Operation Weeting after receiving "significant new information" from News International on 26 January last year. A total of 24 people including 15 current and former journalists have been arrested as part of the operation.

Police have also detained 41 people under Operation Elveden, an investigation into alleged corrupt payments made to police officers and other public officials.

Seven people have been arrested as part of Operation Tuleta, investigating the scale of computer hacking and other breaches of privacy.

The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa) is a complex piece of legislation and there has been doubt in legal circles about when exactly an offence of phone hacking may be said to have been committed. Prosecutors looking at the evidence gathered by the new police phone-hacking investigation have been working on the basis of a "broad interpretation" of Ripa, the director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer, told the Guardian earlier this month.

This would mean it was not absolutely necessary – for the purposes of bringing a criminal prosecution – for a voicemail message to have been unheard by its intended recipient before it was allegedly hacked into.

Coulson has already been charged in Scotland over alleged perjury, while Brooks has already been charged in England with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jul/24/phone-hacking-charges

Edited July 24, 2012 by Douglas Caddy

[Douglas Caddy]

News Corporation directors could face charges for neglect of duties

Lawyers for Rupert Murdoch's company have protested against criminal charges amid fears over broadcasting contracts

By Nick Davies and David Leigh

guardian.co.uk,

Tuesday 31 July 2012 15.27 EDT

Directors within Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation could face corporate charges and prosecution for neglect of their duties, in plans that are being examined by the Crown Prosecution Service.

Company lawyers, fearing a dramatic escalation of the hacking scandal by criminalising the boards on which Murdoch family members sit, are understood to have protested to the authorities.

A criminal prosecution could have a strong adverse impact on the deliberations by Ofcom as to whether News Corp representatives are "fit and proper" to hold UK broadcasting licences.

Asked about representations that have been made to the police or the CPS about the unfairness of possible corporate charges, a News International spokesman said yesterday that Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers, who is leading the police inquiries into phone hacking, conceded the company culture had now changed: "She agreed that the current senior management and corporate approach at News International has been to assist and come clean."

The company's protestations that it had turned over a new leaf appeared to receive some support from Lord Justice Leveson at his inquiry last week, when he brought up its past alleged obstruction of the police. Leveson said at the inquiry: "I received evidence of the response which the police received when they visited News International in 2006.

"Would it be right for me to conclude at this stage that whatever might have happened in the past at News International titles, the senior management and corporate approach now has been to assist and come clean, from which I might be able to draw the inference that there is a change in culture, practice and approach?" Akers responded: "Yes, sir. I don't disagree with any of that."

One problem for News International, however, is the wording of section 79 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, the hacking legislation under which eight senior News of the World journalists and executives have already been charged. It provides for the corporate prosecution of a company which commits such an offence, and also of any director whose neglect or connivance led to the crime.

The most senior executive so far charged with offences, and the only News International board member, is Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive, who denies separate allegations of an attempted cover-up of the hacking scandal, as well as denying the charges of involvement in hacking. She only joined the board in 2009 and resigned last year.

Rupert Murdoch's son James joined the News International board in April 2008, and resigned last year. His father also recently resigned all his UK newspaper board positions. The only other senior Murdoch executive on the NI board throughout the period of the original hacking scandal was its previous chief executive, Les Hinton, who left the UK boards in 2007. He said later: "I was ignorant of what apparently happened."

Hinton rejected heavy criticisms of him by a Commons committee investigating the phone hacking, which accused him of "selective amnesia" in his dealings with them. The report, published earlier this year, claimed he misled parliament and was "complicit" in a cover-up of the true extent of the hacking.

The culture, media and sport committee also accused James Murdoch of willful blindness in failing to investigate the extent of phone hacking. Opposition MPs on the committee branded Rupert Murdoch as unfit to be in charge of a large media firm, although Tory members refused to support this.

The CPS is not making any public statements. But the disclosure that it was advising the police on possible corporate criminal charges was made by Akers during her Leveson testimony, when she said that advice was being obtained "in respect of both individual and corporate offences". Despite subsequent speculation that this was a reference to possible action against the company by the US justice department, it is understood that the CPS is only looking at potential UK offences. News International said: "We are aware of the reference made by DAC Sue Akers in her evidence to the Leveson inquiry."

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http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/07/31/uk-police-arrest-sun-journalist-in-stolen-cellphone-plot/

Edited August 1, 2012 by Douglas Caddy

[Douglas Caddy]

Rebekah Brooks charged over phone hacking allegations

Former News International chief executive formally charged over alleged phone hacking and will appear in court next month

• By Press Association
  
• guardian.co.uk,
  
• Thursday 2 August 2012 20.34 EDT
  

Former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks was formally charged with phone hacking and will appear in court next month, Scotland Yard have said.

Brooks, 44, answered bail at Lewisham police station and will appear at Westminster magistrates court on 3 September.

Six other journalists from the News of the World, including David Cameron's former spin doctor Andy Coulson, have been officially charged and will appear at the same court on 16 August.

The seven stand accused of one general charge of alleged phone hacking between October 2000 and August 2006 that could affect as many as 600 victims.

Brooks, of Churchill, Oxford, and Coulson face specific charges of illegally accessing the voicemail of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler.

The other former NoW staff who face court action are ex-managing editor Stuart Kuttner, former news editor Greg Miskiw, former head of news Ian Edmondson, ex-chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck and former reporter James Weatherup.

In a statement issued last month, Brooks insisted she was innocent, adding: "The charge concerning Milly Dowler is particularly upsetting, not only as it is untrue but also because I have spent my journalistic career campaigning for victims of crime. I will vigorously defend these allegations."

Brooks is already facing three counts of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, linked to the investigation into phone hacking.

She and five others, including her racehorse trainer husband Charlie, who faces one count of the same offence, are due to appear at Southwark crown court in London on 26 September.

[Douglas Caddy]

News Corporation posts $1.6bn loss as phone-hacking legal fees stack up

Losses include charges related to plan to split off publishing assets from more lucrative film and

By Dominic Rushe in New York

guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 8 August 2012 17.39 EDT

News Corp said legal costs relating to the phone-hacking investigation had mounted to $224m.

News Corporation made a loss of $1.6bn (£1.2bn) in the last quarter as it absorbed $2.8bn in charges related to a plan to spin off its ailing publishing businesses.

The loss compared with a profit of $683m in the same period a year ago and came as revenues dipped 6.7% to $8.4bn, hit by a slide in audiences for TV shows including American Idol and disappointment at the box office for its Hollywood studio. The results were below analysts' expectations and the company's shares fell in after-hours trading.

The fourth-quarter loss was linked "most significantly" to poor performances at News Corp's Australian publishing assets, the company said.

News Corp announced plans last month to split off its publishing assets including the Wall Street Journal, the Times and the Sun in the UK, and its Australian newspapers from the more lucrative film and television assets including Fox Broadcasting, the Twentieth Century Fox studios and its stake in BSkyB.

The move comes in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal that has led to a sprawling criminal investigation in Britain and has triggered an investigation in the US under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

News Corp said legal costs relating to the investigation had risen to $224m for the 2012 fiscal year.

On a conference call with analysts, News Corp president Chase Carey said the split of the company was going as planned and "all about bringing focus and alignment to our business".

The results painted a grim picture for the publishing business, which reported annual operating income of $597m, down from $864m a year ago. The drop would be even worse, were it not for the exclusion of a $125m litigation settlement charge the company took last year related to its marketing services business.

News Corp's publishing business was hit particularly hard by declines at its Australian and UK newspapers, as well as the absence of contributions from the closure of the News of the World.

Carey said 2013 would be a flat year for publishing and that a recovery in UK business was likely to be offset by more losses in Australia.

Rupert Murdoch, chairman and chief executive, was not on the call, but said in a press release: "News Corporation is in a strong operational, strategic and financial position, which should only be enhanced by the proposed separation of the media and entertainment and publishing businesses."

Murdoch's son, James, who stepped down from senior executive positions at BSkyB and News Corp in the UK earlier this year, was present on the conference call but was not asked any questions and did not speak. The media was allowed to listen in to the call but reporters were not permitted to ask questions.

[Douglas Caddy]

The British Lawmaker Nipping at Tabloids’ Heels

By AMY CHOZICK

The New York Times

August 10, 2012

LONDON

SIX years ago, Rupert Murdoch’s British tabloid The Sun described Tom Watson, then a little-known 39-year-old member of Parliament, as part of a “plotting gang of weasels” who played “grubby politics at a time when soldiers are dying in Afghanistan.”

Recently, Mr. Watson got some payback.

For years he led the push to investigate the freewheeling tactics at British tabloids, most notably those belonging to Mr. Murdoch, as the scandal involving phone hacking unfolded. Last month prosecutors brought criminal charges against eight senior editors and reporters at News International, the British publishing arm of Mr. Murdoch’s News Corporation.

Since the accusations were first made public, Mr. Watson, a Labour politician who had himself been the subject of tabloid fodder, has emerged as a kind of Inspector Javert of the Murdochs. He served on the parliamentary committee on media ethics that repeatedly questioned Mr. Murdoch and his son James; traveled to Los Angeles to attend the company’s shareholder meeting where he leveled new charges, and he even recently published a book about the phone-hacking scandal, “Dial M For Murdoch.”

It is hard to imagine even the most publicity-craving American official writing a similar book in the middle of Congressional hearings. And Mr. Watson has faced criticism for his ubiquity in the British news media and for telling James Murdoch, who formerly oversaw News Corporation’s British operations, during the hearing that he is “the first mafia boss in history who didn’t know he was running a criminal enterprise.” The criticisms have not deterred Mr. Watson.

On a sunny afternoon in his office at Portcullis House in Westminster, the shades pulled tight, he said he expected that the phone hacking would prove to be the tip of the iceberg. “I’m certain we’ll see more evidence emerge of computer hacking,” Mr. Watson said in a far-ranging interview in May. Last month a Scotland Yard investigation did reveal that wrongdoing at Murdoch-owned British papers extended to computer hacking and payments to public officials.

Mr. Watson, 45, is not the typical corporate gadfly. He indulges in the role-playing video game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim in his free time and quotes Bob Dylan in describing News International’s mistakes. (“The ladder of the law has no top and no bottom,” he said in a May news conference.)

Last year, Mr. Watson was named deputy chairman of the Labour Party, a position that coordinates the party’s campaigns.

On his office wall at Parliament hangs an illustrated rendering of Mr. Watson dressed as Super Mario, royal blue overalls and all, and a framed copy of the final edition of the 168-year-old News of the World, the Murdoch tabloid closed in July 2011 after reports of widespread phone hacking emerged. “Thank You & Goodbye,” the headline read.

Born in Sheffield and raised in Kidderminster in Britain’s West Midlands area, he grew up reading the left-wing tabloid Morning Star (founded in 1930 as the mouthpiece of Britain’s Communist Party) and middle-market Daily Express. He was first elected to Parliament in 2001, representing West Bromwich East, a central district that includes most of the town of West Bromwich and has one of the highest unemployment rates in Britain.

IN 2006, Mr. Watson signed a letter calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Tony Blair, whom Mr. Murdoch still backed. The move, Mr. Watson said, prompted the ire of Rebekah Brooks (then Rebekah Wade), the onetime editor of both The Sun and News of the World who has now been charged with phone hacking and obstruction.

He said the political editor at the Blair-friendly Sun warned him: “My editor will pursue you for the rest of your life. She will never forgive you for what you did to her Tony.” Ms. Brooks could not be reached for comment, and a News Corporation spokeswoman could not comment on the criminal investigation.

In 2009 The Telegraph reported that Mr. Watson claimed the maximum government allowance on a set of dining room chairs for his London home. The purchase, which he had to defend with the parliamentary fees office, earned Mr. Watson a free pizza cutter from the department store Marks & Spencer, a detail not lost on the British media.

He said he did not think much about phone hacking until 2009 when The Guardian published an article about how News of the World reporters regularly intercepted voice mail messages. Colin Myler, then the editor of The News of the World (and now of The New York Daily News), answered lawmakers’ questions about the accusations. “His body language was such that I thought there had to be more to it,” Mr. Watson said. “That’s when we really started to drill down deeper.”

Around that time, News International put Mr. Watson and his family under surveillance.

“We were put under unbearable pressure,” Mr. Watson said. He said the scrutiny put on his family by News International contributed to his divorce. “My wife and I are separated mainly because she’s not patient about News International in any way,” Mr. Watson said.

In November, James Murdoch said he was subsequently made aware that the company had spied on Mr. Watson. “I apologize unreservedly for that,” he said in a parliamentary select committee hearing. “It is not something that I would condone. It is not something I had knowledge of, and it is not something that has a place in the way we operate.”

In May, Mr. Watson, as part of Parliament’s Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, was one of six Labour and Liberal Democrat legislators who declared that the elder Murdoch was “not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of a major international company.”

News Corporation called the report’s declaration “unjustified and highly partisan,” but Mr. Watson stands by the report’s language. With unexpected respect he called Mr. Murdoch “one of the great media innovators of the last half century,” but said that the scandal had exposed a “corporate culture that is shot to pieces.” (A News Corporation spokeswoman declined to comment for this article.)

Mr. Watson’s new book, written with the journalist Martin Hickman, recounts the episodes that led to the closing of The News of the World. In the book he tells a story steeped in the language of class warfare and refers to himself in the third person, in both mundane and heroic terms. (“Watson crept out of bed and bought the papers.” “As Watson walked along the beach, he was in tears.”)

HE said he did not see a conflict in writing a book about a corporate scandal while sitting on a committee investigating that scandal. Instead, he said he considered the book a public service.

“It’s a complex story that was not told in the pages of British newspapers until very recently,” Mr. Watson said. He added: “And our select committees aren’t as powerful as Senate committees” in the United States.

Mr. Watson said he expected the investigation into News Corporation would stretch on for at least two more years. The scandal, meanwhile, has helped raise Mr. Watson’s profile, a detail not lost on his opponents, who feel the crusade against Mr. Murdoch was motivated in part for political gain. Mr. Watson said it was not. But he did say that a murky area goes with the territory.

“The good guys and the bad guys are all slightly flawed in this tragedy,” Mr. Watson said. The bells of Big Ben just outside his office struck five o’clock in the background. He added: “In some ways it’s so positively Shakespearean.”

[Douglas Caddy]

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp launches anti-corruption review

Media group to review compliance with bribery laws in several of its publishing arms, including News International in London

By Josh Halliday

guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 15 August 2012 12.38 EDT

[To view Murdoch memo to staff, click on link below]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/aug/15/rupert-murdoch-memo-news-corp-staff?intcmp=239

Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation has launched a review of anti-corruption controls in several of its publishing arms, including News International in London.

Murdoch told News Corp staff in a memo on Wednesday that the company recently launched the probe as a "forward-looking review" to improve compliance with bribery laws.

The media tycoon told staff that the anti-corruption review was "not based on any suspicion of wrongdoing by any particular business unit or its personnel".

The memo described the review as focused on selected locations around the globe. One of these locations is London, where News International publishes the Sun, the Times and the Sunday Times. It also published the now-closed News of the World.

It is understood that News International's broad internal anti-corruption review began officially in July last year, when Tom Mockridge replaced Rebekah Brooks as chief executive.

The probe accelerated when Imogen Haddon took over as chief compliance officer at News International in March. News Corp also appointed two New York-based compliance officers to oversee company-wide procedures. Gerson Zweifach, ex-senior executive vice-president and general counsel, is News Corp chief compliance officer and Lisa Fleischman, former associate general counsel, is deputy compliance officer.

The Metropolitan police has arrested 14 current or former Sun journalists as part of its ongoing investigation into inappropriate payments to police and public officials.

Murdoch said in his memo to staff: "As you are all aware, our company has been under intense scrutiny in the United Kingdom. I assured parliament and the Leveson inquiry that we would move quickly and aggressively to redress wrongdoing, co-operate with law enforcement officials and strengthen our compliance and ethics programme company-wide. With the support of our board of directors, I am pleased to tell you that we have made progress on each of these important steps."

He added: "We have already strengthened and expanded our anti-bribery training programmes. To ensure the effectiveness of our entire compliance and ethics programme, we have recently initiated a review of anti-corruption controls in selected locations around the globe. The purpose of this review is to test our current internal controls and identify ways in which we can enhance them.

"Let me emphasise that the review is not based on any suspicion of wrongdoing by any particular business unit or its personnel. Rather, it is a forward-looking review based on our commitment to improve anti-corruption controls throughout the company."

Murdoch said the strengthening of News Corp's compliance procedures will take time and resources, but added that the cost of non-compliance are far more serious.

[Douglas Caddy]

Names of up to 600 victims of phone hacking to be revealed

The new list is likely to cause fresh investor dissatisfaction with News International

The Telegraph

By Martin Hickman

Wednesday, 22 August 2012

Hundreds of alleged phone-hacking victims are about to be named for the first time, substantially raising the pressure on Rupert Murdoch's newspaper empire.

Alleged victims of voicemail interception, such as Wayne Rooney, Sir Paul McCartney and Sienna Miller, have so far emerged in dribs and drabs and the total stands at around 200.

However, The Independent can disclose that within weeks prosecutors will reveal a list of up to 600 names in phone hacking criminal cases.

The list is expected to reveal more well-known figures typical of the News of the World's alleged targets, such as actors, pop stars, politicians and murder victims. Media attention is likely to centre on whether any more Hollywood stars join Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie on the charge sheet.

The move – the biggest single announcement of alleged targets of illegal newsgathering – is likely to generate a mass of embarrassing headlines and heighten investor dissatisfaction with the News of the World's owner, News International, and its American corporate parent, News Corp. News Corp is spinning off its publishing assets, including its remaining British newspapers – The Sunday Times, The Times and The Sun – in an attempt to assure investors.

Detectives have already contacted the majority of "likely" victims, most of whom have come to public attention only when launching civil cases against the News of the World. Police are now in the process of contacting hundreds more people to inform them that their cases form part of a generic criminal charge against seven former NOTW staff: Andy Coulson (later David Cameron's Downing Street media chief), Rebekah Brooks, Stuart Kuttner, Greg Miskiw, Ian Edmondson, Neville Thurlbeck and James Weatherup.

Once that process is finished, prosecutors (who may exclude victims who strongly object to being involved in a high-profile trial) will announce remaining names on the charge sheet. That means up to 400 people not previously known to be victims are expected to be identified at court hearings.

All seven journalists are jointly accused of one count of conspiracy to intercept the voicemail messages of 600 individuals between 2000 and 2006. They are also charged with offences in relation to a varying number of a pool of 23 newsworthy individuals, including the film star Jude Law and former England football coach Sven Goran Eriksson.

Private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, who does not face the generic charge, is accused of conspiring to hack the phones of the murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler, former Fire Brigades Union leader Andy Gilchrist, TV chef Delia Smith and former Cabinet minister Charles Clarke.

Brooks, her racehorse trainer husband Charlie Brooks and five others have been charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice relating to the police investigation and are due to attend Southwark Crown Court in relation to those charges on 26 September. All those charged who have so far spoken out to say they are innocent of all charges.

[Douglas Caddy]

Elisabeth Murdoch takes aim at brother on media morality

By Paul Sandle

August 23, 2012

EDINBURGH (Reuters) - Elisabeth Murdoch urged the media industry on Thursday to embrace morality and reject her brother James's mantra of profit at all costs, in a speech seen as an attempt to distance herself from the scandal that has tarnished the family name.

Addressing television executives, she said profit without purpose was a recipe for disaster and the phone hacking scandal at the News of the World tabloid - which has badly hurt her father Rupert Murdoch's News Corp empire - showed the need for a rigorous set of values.

The comments from a woman who has powerful friends in the British establishment and the support of her PR husband Matthew Freud, are likely to be examined for whether she could one day run News Corp instead of her brothers whose chances have faded.

"News (Corp) is a company that is currently asking itself some very significant and difficult questions about how some behaviors fell so far short of its values," she said in the annual television industry MacTaggart lecture.

"Personally I believe one of the biggest lessons of the past year has been the need for any organization to discuss, affirm and institutionalize a rigorous set of values based on an explicit statement of purpose," she said in remarks which drew applause.

Elisabeth Murdoch - a successful television producer who was overlooked for senior jobs at News Corp that went first to her brother Lachlan and then James - said a lack of morality could become a dangerous own goal for capitalism.

Rupert Murdoch last year closed the News of the World, which was owned by a News Corp unit, amid public anger that its journalists had hacked into the voicemails of people from celebrities to victims of crime. A number of former executives have appeared in court over the case and the government set up a judicial inquiry into press standards.

"There's only one way to look at this," Murdoch biographer Michael Wolff told Reuters. "This is part of a strategic repositioning of Liz Murdoch within the media world, with the business world and within the family."

The often humorous lecture delivered at the annual Edinburgh Television Festival came three years after James Murdoch used the same platform to confront a largely hostile audience with his vision for the industry.

Elisabeth, 44, and 39-year-old James had been very close, according to sources close to the family, but their relationship became strained by the hacking affair.

"Writing a MacTaggart (lecture) has been quite a welcome distraction from some of the other nightmares much closer to home. Yes, you have met some of my family before," she said to laughter, in a rare speech for the founder of the successful television production company Shine.

Stewart Purvis, the former head of broadcast news provider ITN, said on Twitter that the speech should be called "Why I am not my father or my brother".

Her highly personal speech appeared designed to win over any doubters, with references to childhood conversations at the breakfast table with dad to her continuing affection for the much-loved British playwright Alan Bennett.

She even lavished praise on the state-owned BBC, previously the butt of jokes by her brother but which also regularly airs programs made by her Shine company.

RECIPE FOR DISASTER

Referring to her younger brother James's 2009 speech, Elisabeth said his assertion that the only reliable, durable and perpetual guarantor of media independence was profit had fallen short of the mark.

"The reason his statement sat so uncomfortably is that profit without purpose is a recipe for disaster," she said.

"Profit must be our servant, not our master," she added. "It's increasingly apparent that the absence of purpose - or of a moral language — within government, media or business, could become one of the most dangerous own goals for capitalism and for freedom."

British tabloids have been accused of producing ever-more salacious stories before the scandal broke in an effort to maintain circulation. Rupert Murdoch admitted that the scandal had left a serious blot on his reputation.

The sharp change in tone, with its emphasis on personal responsibility, underlined how much had changed since James Murdoch used his own MacTaggart lecture to accuse the BBC of having "chilling" ambitions.

That speech, delivered in his role as chairman of the pay-TV group BSkyB and head of News Corp in Europe and Asia, consolidated James's position as heir apparent to his father's role. It also echoed Rupert Murdoch's own 1989 speech that broadcasting was a business that needed competition.

Since then, both men have been chastened by the fallout of the phone hacking affair.

At the height of the scandal News Corp had to halt a $12 billion bid to buy the rest of BSkyB it did not already own, angering investors and sowing doubts as to whether James had what it took to run the $55 billion empire.

News Corp announced in June that it was splitting off its newspaper business.

While brother Lachlan was often pictured with the family last year, Elisabeth stayed in the background. Lachlan stood down from his role as News Corp deputy chief operating officer in 2005 after clashing with senior executives.

Now James Murdoch's fall from grace has turned the spotlight onto Elisabeth in the long-running debate over who will one day replace their 81-year-old father at the head of the company.

"I think she was trying to put her mark on where she had come from and where she fits in," Enders analyst Toby Syfret told Reuters after emerging from the speech. "She made it clear where she didn't agree with James, and she made clear the things about her father that she admired.

"From a political level it was quite interesting."

Stressing her links to her father and the vision he espoused when he built his company over 60 years ago, she spoke in glowing terms of his 1989 speech.

"A quarter of a century later, I am still wholly inspired by those words and they are still deeply relevant today," she said. "I understood that we were in pursuit of a greater good - a belief in better."

(Writing by Kate Holton; editing by David Stamp)

[Douglas Caddy]

I pushed for my brother to be demoted, says Elisabeth Murdoch

Admission comes after she criticised approach to phone-hacking scandal in keynote speech

IBy an Burrell

The Independent

Saturday, 25 August 2012

Elisabeth Murdoch has admitted that she lobbied for her brother James to be demoted at the family's News Corp media empire over his handling of the phone-hacking scandal, a day after she publicly criticised him over his approach to business.

Ms Murdoch told delegates at the Edinburgh International Television Festival that she had lobbied "within closed doors" for James to stand down from his role as executive chairman of News International. She agreed that she had been "quite forceful" in insisting that James should "take a step back".

She also lobbied for News International's chief executive Rebekah Brooks to resign. "She had to resign," she said yesterday. Ms Brooks, who faces criminal charges over phone hacking, is a friend of Ms Murdoch.

The latest comments follow Ms Murdoch's criticisms of her brother during her James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture on Thursday night.

That attack was widely seen as an attempt to distance herself from James and to position herself for a bigger role within News Corp, where James is deputy chief operating officer and had until recently been widely seen as the likely heir to their 81-year-old father, Rupert.

James Murdoch delivered the MacTaggart Lecture in 2009 and used the occasion to attack the ambition of the BBC and to claim that profit was the only guarantor of independence in business. His sister rebutted the theory – saying it was a "recipe for disaster" – and went out of her way to praise the leadership of the BBC and express support for its licence fee. Although she described James as an "incredibly able" media executive yesterday, the fact she pushed for him to stand down gives an indication of her position within the family and News Corp.

Since last year, Ms Murdoch has returned to the family business following News Corp's £415m acquisition of Shine Group, the portfolio of independent television production companies she has built up since 2001. But in Edinburgh she rejected the notion that she wanted to run News Corp. "I really harbour no ambition for the top job," she said.

Referring to her comments on News Corp in her speech, she said it had been a "nightmare year" for the company and she felt a responsibility to "stand and up be counted" by giving her views.

Ms Murdoch, 44, also used her MacTaggart speech to express her admiration for her father, who delivered the same lecture a generation earlier. "My dad had the vision, the will and the sense of purpose to challenge the old world order on behalf of 'the people'," she said. Yesterday she spoke of her pain at watching the elderly media mogul give evidence to MPs on his company's involvement in phone hacking

"As a daughter it was absolutely heartbreaking," she said. "He's my dad. I love him. " Ms Murdoch said her father was being genuine when he described the parliamentary questioning as the most humbling day of his life. "I know he absolutely meant it," she said.

[Douglas Caddy]

Angry Murdoch used Harry photos to defy Leveson

The owner of 'The Sun' intervened personally to run the pictures of the naked prince

By Jane Merrick, Paul Bignell

The Independent

Sunday, 26 August 2012

An angry Rupert Murdoch ordered The Sun to publish pictures of a naked Prince Harry against the wishes of the Royal Family because he wanted to send a warning shot to Lord Justice Leveson, sources said yesterday.

The owner of the red-top phoned the News International chief executive Tom Mockridge from New York on Thursday amid suggestions that The Sun and other papers did not carry the photos for fear of recriminations in the Leveson report.

When the images emerged on Wednesday, St James's Palace asked the Press Complaints Commission to tell editors it did not want them published, and all British papers abided by the request on Thursday. But on Friday, The Sun carried a picture of a naked Prince Harry, taken during a game of strip pool in his hotel suite in Las Vegas last weekend, raising questions over why the paper changed its stance.

News International has refused to comment on speculation that Mr Murdoch intervened. But according to a well-placed source, Mr Murdoch told Mr Mockridge in his transatlantic phone call on Thursday: "There is a principle here. I know this is about Leveson but this is humiliating. We can't carry on like this. We should run them, do it and say to Leveson, we are doing it for press freedom."

The Sun's decision to publish the pictures sparked both criticism and praise from MPs, peers and commentators, as well as more than 850 complaints from members of the public to the PCC. St James's Palace so far has not lodged a formal complaint of breach of privacy on behalf of Prince Harry with the PCC.

It has also triggered a debate about what constitutes the public interest, given that Prince Harry, an officer in the Army, was in his hotel room, despite partying with several strangers. Lord Justice Leveson is preparing to publish his report into the practices and ethics of the press this autumn, and is expected to recommend tougher independent regulation. There are fears that The Sun's actions may force Lord Justice Leveson to come down harder on newspapers.

Neil Wallis, a former executive editor of the News of the World, said: "This was a decision taken by Rupert. Rupert cares passionately about newspapers. He thinks this stuff is important. This is the only good thing that has happened at News International for a year. Once they knew they were going to do it, there was just a magnificent morale boost. They have stood up and looked the rest of the media in the eye, Parliament in the eye, and looked Leveson in the eye. Rupert has done an enormous amount for the morale of his own newspaper. And also, I know, journalists from other companies, although they can't publicly say so."

But Max Mosley, who successfully sued the News of the World for breach of privacy, told The Independent on Sunday that publishing the Prince Harry photographs was "100 per cent not in the public interest. It is theft. It's his privacy … and they've stolen something from him. If they were an honest newspaper, they wouldn't have published them".

A spokesman for the Leveson inquiry declined to comment. A spokeswoman for News International said: "We haven't commented at all on who was involved or not involved in the decision process."

According to reports, Prince Harry, 27, the third in line to the throne, was being summoned for "crisis talks" with his father, Prince Charles. There is also pressure on St James's Palace and Buckingham Palace to review royal protection procedures.

Harriet Harman, Labour deputy leader and the shadow Culture Secretary, cast doubt yesterday on Elisabeth Murdoch's MacTaggart lecture last week in which she distanced herself from her father and brother James. Speaking at the Edinburgh International Television Festival, Ms Harman said: "It was exquisite torture for me that you wait 17 years for a woman to give the MacTaggart lecture and it's a Murdoch. It's a bit like waiting for a woman to be Prime Minister and finding it's Margaret Thatcher. Of course it was important for her to be saying profit should be the servant, not the master, but we didn't hear how that was going to happen."

Ms Harman criticised the "dysfunctionality" in the Murdoch empire and added: "What the Murdochs mean for many people is concentration of power or abuse of power."

[Douglas Caddy]

Journalist arrested in UK computer hacking probe

Posted: Aug 29, 2012 10:50 AM CDT Updated: Aug 29, 2012 11:35 AM CDT

By Associated Press

LONDON -

British police investigating computer hacking and privacy offenses arrested a journalist Wednesday at his home.

The 28-year-old man was being questioned at a London police station for alleged hacking related to the identification of an anonymous blogger in 2009. He is also suspected of perverting the course of justice, police said.

Police did not identify the journalist by name, but the Press Association said he was Patrick Foster, a former reporter at The Times. The British news agency didn't cite a source when identifying Foster.

The journalist was the 11th person arrested by detectives from Operation Tuleta, one of three parallel police investigations triggered by the phone-hacking scandal that has rocked Britain and Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. media empire.

More than 40 people have been arrested in the probes of media wrongdoing and corruption. Criminal charges have been brought against suspects such as Rebekah Brooks, the former chief of News Corp.'s British operations, and Andy Coulson, a former Murdoch tabloid editor and the former communications chief for Prime Minister David Cameron.

Separately, police in Scotland said they detained and charged former News of the World journalist Bob Bird in Glasgow on Wednesday with attempting to pervert the course of justice during the 2006 defamation court case between the tabloid and former lawmaker Tommy Sheridan. Sheridan successfully sued the newspaper for defamation in 2006.

Bird, 56, edited the Scottish edition of the now-closed tabloid when it ran allegations about Sheridan's private life.

"I have always done my best to do the right thing throughout the 30, 40 years of my journalistic career and I will be denying the charge against me," he told reporters outside the police station after he was released later Wednesday.

Read more: http://www.myfoxdc.com/story/19407264/journalist-arrested-in-uk-computer-hacking-probe?clienttype=printable#ixzz24zD4bCy5

[Douglas Caddy]

Phone Hacking: Tom Crone, former News of the World legal manager is arrested

Tom Crone, the former legal manager of the News of the World has been arrested by police investigating the phone hacking scandal.

By Martin Evans, Crime Correspondent

The Telegraph

12:54PM BST 30 Aug 2012

The 60-year-old was detained at 6.45 this morning when officers attended his home in South West London.

He was arrested on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications and was taken to a local police station for questioning.

Sources said Mr Crone’s arrest followed information obtained by the police via the company’s Management and Standards Committee, set up in the wake of the phone hacking scandal.

Mr Crone spent more than 25-years in News International’s legal department, having previously worked for the Mirror Group.

He become the legal manager of the company, but his main focus was concentrated on steering the News of the World out of legal difficulty.

Mr Crone left the company last July in the wake of the closure of the News of the World following the Milly Dowler hacking revelations.

In 2009 Mr Crone accompanied the newspaper’s then editor, Colin Myler, to the culture media and sport select committee, where he maintained the line that phone hacking was believed to have gone no further than a single “rogue reporter”.

He and Mr Myler later contradicted James Murdoch’s evidence to the committee insisting that they had informed him there was evidence that the scandal was much wider spread.

When Rupert Murdoch appeared before the Leveson Inquiry into press standards earlier this year, he appeared to implicate Mr Crone in cover up at the company, claiming a "clever lawyer and drinking pal of the journalists" had prevented employees from blowing the whistle, while shielding executives from the truth.

Mr Crone later issued a statement rebutting the allegations.

He said: "Since Rupert Murdoch’s evidence today about a lawyer who had been on the News of the World for many years can only refer to me, I am issuing the following statement.

“His assertion that I “took charge of a cover-up” in relation to phone-hacking is a shameful lie. The same applies to his assertions that I misinformed senior executives about what was going on and that I forbade people from reporting to Rebekah Brooks or to James Murdoch.

“It is perhaps no coincidence that the two people he has identified in relation to his cover-up allegations are the same two people who pointed out that his son’s evidence to the Parliamentary Select Committee last year was inaccurate.

"The fact that Mr Murdoch’s attack on Colin Myler and myself may have been personal as well as being wholly wrong greatly demeans him.”

A spokesman for Scotland Yard said: "Officers from Operation Weeting, the MPS inquiry into the hacking of telephone voicemail boxes, arrested a man in South West London this morning, Thursday 30 August.

"The 60-year-old man was arrested at his home address at approximately 06.45 hrs this morning on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications contrary to Section 1 of the Criminal Law Act 1977. He is being interviewed at a South London police station."

[Douglas Caddy]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/sep/03/rebekah-brooke-magistrates-court

[Douglas Caddy]

Hacking: Hugh Grant latest star to sue News of the World

Hugh Grant, the British actor, has become the latest celebrity to sue over claims his phone was hacked by journalists at the News of the World.

By Telegraph Reporters

The telegraph

9:30AM BST 14 Sep 2012

The Four Weddings and a Funeral and Love Actually Star launched legal action on Thursday, on the eve of a High Court appointed deadline.

Reports claimed yesterday that any money Grant won from News International would be donated to other victims of phone hacking.

The 52 year-old, who lives in West London, has been a high-profile critic of invasions of privacy by the press and last month became a director of a new not-for-profit company set up by Hacked Off, the campaign group.

NI has already settled more than 50 claims, following a payment of £2 million in damages to the parents of the murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler and a further £1m given to charity of their choice.

It is said that 68 recent civil claims for damages have been lodged against News International and up to 40 more are expected before a deadline today.

Yesterday it also emerged that a Welsh priest whose voicemail messages were intercepted by the now defunct tabloid to get scoops about one of his parishioners, the British pop star Charlotte Church, is also suing NI.

Fr Richard Reardon, a Roman Catholic priest in Cardiff, launched legal action after Scotland Yard told him the newspaper’s former private detective, Glenn Mulcaire, had his phone number among thousands of pages of notes about victims.

He spoke with the Church family regularly and shared voice mails and text messages with them, sources told Bloomberg.

The singer, who performed at Chairman Rupert Murdoch’s wedding in 1999, when she was 13, and her parents received £600,000 in damages and costs earlier this year.

The priest is the first religious figure to sue, as the scandal has focused on journalists targeting celebrities, politicians, crime victims and their families.

It comes as up to 300 more people, including the former England footballer Sol Campbell, are to claim compensation from NI as alleged victims of phone-hacking.

The Apprentice contestant Ruth Badger, the former pop singer and reality TV star Kerry Katona and her ex-husband Brian McFadden have also issued damages claims against the publisher of the News of the World.

But not all of those believed to have had their voicemail messages intercepted by private detectives working for the tabloid newspaper were public figures.

Among the other individuals now taking legal action are Kirsty Brimelow, a barrister, Robin Winskell, a sports lawyer, and Daniel Boffey, a journalist.

The names were disclosed at a High Court case management hearing earlier this month. In addition, 395 people have asked the Metropolitan Police to let them know if they too had their phone messages listened to by journalists hoping to find private information for stories.

Of those, 124 claims have been accepted into the compensation fund set up by Rupert Murdoch’s print empire. That would put the total number of fresh claims at some 240.

It emerged this month that many potential victims may still not have been told that their names featured in the notebooks and emails seized from News International and private detectives.

Aside from the mounting civil claims, Scotland Yard is carrying out three separate criminal inquiries that could cost up to £40m and take four years.

But out of 4,744 potential victims of phone-hacking, only 2,500 have been contacted by detectives and the rest may be unreachable.

So far 25 people have been arrested in the phone-hacking probe, Operation Weeting, and 46 in the inquiry into corrupt payments to public officials, Op Elveden.

Former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks has appeared in court charged with conspiring to hack the phones of more than 600 people including the murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler.

The 44-year-old's appearance at Westminster Magistrates Court follows that last month of six of her former colleagues from the News of the World, who face similar charges.

Lawyers for Fr Reardon, Church declined to comment as did a NI spokesman. Grant was unavailable for comment on the Guardian’s claims about his case.

[Douglas Caddy]

News Corp shareholders in US want to sue over phone hacking scandal

Murdoch family put personal interests ahead of the company's, shareholders allege, as they ask judge to amend earlier lawsuit

B y Dominic Rushe in New York

guardian.co.uk,

Wednesday 19 September 2012 11.29 EDT

Shareholders in Rupert Murdoch's News Corp are asking a US court for permission to sue the firm's board for failing to stop the phone hacking scandal.

The shareholders asked Delaware judge John Noble on Wednesday to proceed with their case against Murdoch, his sons Lachlan and James and the rest of the company's board. News Corp is attempting to have the case dismissed.

In all, 50 people have been arrested in connection with the scandal, News Corp has closed its most profitable newspaper, the News of the World newspaper, and lost a deal to take over the BSkyB satellite broadcast business.

The shareholders, including America's Amalgamated Bank and Central Laborers' Pension Funds, charge the company's executives put their own interests ahead shareholders and treated the firm as a "family candy jar".

The lawsuit was originally filed in March 2011 over News Corp's agreement to buy Shine, a TV production company owned by Elizabeth Murdoch, the News Corp chairman's daughter, for $670m. It was amended after the phone hacking scandal emerged.

"All of this harm occurred because the board chose to protect those close to Murdoch rather than investigate the misconduct when it learned about it," the shareholders said in June in their amended complaint.

"These revelations should not have taken years to uncover and stop. These revelations show a culture run amuck within News Corp and a board that provides no effective review or oversight," the shareholders charged.

Charles Elson, chair in corporate governance at the University of Delaware, said lack of board oversight was a difficult case to bring but that News Corp's dual class share structure could present the Murdochs with some challenges.

News Corp has two classes of shares, and the Murdochs' shares give them 39% of the company votes although the family owns about 15% of the equity.

"The chances of bringing these type of cases are usually pretty slim but here you have independence and conflict of interest issues vis a vis the board so there's more of a shot," said Elson.

Elson said the judges in Delaware, where News Corp and many other US firms are incorporated, were interested in the conflicts that dual class share structures present to shareholders. "In my view dual class share structures cast a shade over a board's independence," he said.

News Corp is under investigation by the US justice department under the foreign corrupt practices act which can impose heavy fines on US firms found to have bribed foreign officials.