Tag Archives: phone hacking

New Statesman: Hugh Grant turns the tables on the phone hackers

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Hugh Grant secretly recorded a conversation with former News of the World deputy features editor Paul McMullen, during which the reporter claimed that former NotW editor Rebekah Brooks “absolutely” knew about illegal phone hacking.

The revelation appears in an article Grant has written for the New Statesman, which is guest-edited this week by the actor’s former partner Jemima Khan.

Grant, who believes he was himself a victim of phone hacking, ended up talking to McMullan when his “midlife crisis car” broke down in a Kent village just before Christmas and he was forced to accept a lift from the reporter, who was following him.

He was Paul McMullan, one of two ex-NoW hacks who had blown the whistle (in the Guardian and on Channel 4’s Dispatches) on the full extent of phone-hacking at the paper, particularly under its former editor Andy Coulson. This was interesting, as I had been a victim – a fact he confirmed as we drove along. He also had an unusual defence of the practice: that phone hacking was a price you had to pay for living in a free society. I asked how that worked exactly, but we ran out of time, and next thing we had arrived and he was asking me if I would pose for a photo with him, “not for publication, just for the wall of the pub”.

I agreed and the picture duly appeared in the Mail on Sunday that weekend with his creative version of the encounter. He had asked me to drop into his pub some time. So when, some months later, Jemima asked me to write a piece for this paper, it occurred to me it might be interesting to take him up on his invitation.

So Grant returned to the the Castle Inn Pub in Dover wearing a hidden microphone, and the fruits of his chat with McMullan will be published in this week’s New Statesman. An edited version is at this link.

Parliament to quiz MP and senior Met officer over phone-hacking investigation

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MP Chris Bryant and acting deputy commissioner for the Metropolitan Police John Yates are due to appear in front of the Home Affairs committee today to answer questions about the Met’s investigation into the News of the World phone-hacking affair.

Earlier this month, Bryant accused Yates of misleading the committee previously in claiming that the number of of phone-hacking victims was between eight and 12.

According to a report by Politics.co.uk, Byrant criticised Yates’ argument that the Crown Prosecution Service’s definition of phone hacking was limited to voicemails intercepted before they were listened to by the intended recipient.

“Yates misled the Committee, whether deliberately or inadvertently. He used an argument that had never been relied on by the CPS or by his own officers so as to suggest that the number of victims was minuscule, whereas in fact we know and he knew that the number of potential victims is and was substantial.”

Last week, appearing before the culture, media and sport select committee, Yates said Bryant was “materially wrong” to accuse him of misleading the committee.

In related news, the Media Guardian reports today that the News of the World’s computers “have retained an archive of potentially damning emails, which hitherto it had claimed had been lost”.

The millions of emails, amounting to half a terabyte of data, could expose executives and reporters involved in hacking the voicemail of public figures, including former deputy prime minister John Prescott, actor Sienna Miller, and former culture secretary Tessa Jowell.

The Guardian reports that MPs on the home affairs select committee are likely to question Yates about these emails later today. You can watch the committee session via Parliament Live TV here.

Panorama to accuse News of the World of hacking emails

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BBC Panorama will tonight broadcast new allegations of wrongdoing at the News of the World, this time claiming emails were hacked into by a private detective and then obtained by a former senior executive at the paper.

The documentary, due to be aired at 8.30pm tonight, claims to expose “the full extent of the ‘dark arts’ employed across the industry to get their story”.

The programme reveals a dishonourable history of law breaking that went beyond phone hacking and questions the police inaction that let it continue.

In a statement released in response to the allegations, News International said that to date Panorama has not provided it with evidence to support the claims.

If Panorama has evidence that illegal acts were actually commissioned by this newspaper then we urge them to supply this information so we can properly investigate it. As recent events show we will not tolerate misconduct by staff. The overarching principle is that we work in the public interest, within the PCC’s code of conduct and the law.

The former executive claims the allegations are untrue, according to the BBC.

Independent: Labour MP to make new claims about phone hacking in Commons debate

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The Independent reports that Labour MP Chris Bryant has secured a Commons debate on the ongoing phone-hacking case. The paper says that Bryant will make further allegations during the debate, which will take place on Thursday.

Mr Bryant has secured a 30-minute Commons debate on Thursday which will include a formal government response. He said: “It has become apparent that the extent of phone hacking is greater than either News Corporation or the News of the World have admitted to. Indeed, it would seem it was far more substantial than that found by the original investigation that the Metropolitan Police could be bothered to mount.” The Rhondda MP said “enormous issues” had been raised by the scandal, which led to the jailing in 2007 of the private detective Glenn Mulcaire and NOTW’s royal editor Clive Goodman.

Full story on Independent.co.uk at this link

Observer: Readers’ editor defends paper’s use of private investigator

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Earlier this month, Journalism.co.uk reported that the Observer would be seeking to distinguish between the case of ‘Operation Motorman’ and the phone-hacking scandal, after ‘confusion in the media’.

Operation Motorman was an investigation launched by the Information Commissioner’s Office in 2003 into the use of private investigators to obtain personal information, claiming that evidence documented “literally thousands of section 55 offences” (Data Protection Act) with more than 300 journalists identified.

At the time the Observer released a statement to say that yes, the Observer has used the services of an outside agency in the past, “and while there were strong public interest defences for most of those cases, it is possible that some of the inquiries did not sufficiently fit that criteria”. As a result editor Roger Alton said action was taken to ensure “no inquiries will be made through outside agencies unless I believe that there is a compelling public interest to do so”.

However, following recent events in the separate phone-hacking investigation and speculation surrounding this, the Observer this weekend published a piece from its readers’ editor Stephen Pritchard, reinforcing its position that there “has never been any suggestion, let alone evidence, that the Observer has undertaken, commissioned or in any way been involved,” in phone hacking.

In relation to the issues surrounding Operation Motorman, current editor John Mulholland is said to have confirmed that Alton’s previous instruction “stands today”. Pritchard also outlines the sorts of stories journalists were using the services in relation to:

Former reporters told me they were working to uncover illegal arms deals, drugs trafficking, Islamic terrorism and political intrigue; stories they believed to be in the public interest that went on to appear in the paper. They said that the names that turn up in [Steve] Whittamore‘s register were people who would be, in the main, hard to find; individuals who would not make themselves available for interview. They felt it was right that they should attempt to find those people and put allegations to them. Sometimes, they would be up against tight deadlines and would use Whittamore because he was quicker at finding phone numbers or converting numbers into subscriber addresses.

New Dispatches phone-hacking investigation to air tonight

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Dispatches is following up on its October phone-hacking investigation tonight with a new installment.

Channel 4 News presenter Alex Thomson tweets that there is “furious re-editing” underway “as new evidence comes in of News International dirty tricks”.

According to Thomson, “it’s not just the tabloids Dirty Secrets…”

Tune in to Channel 4 at 8pm tonight.

More on phone hacking from Journalism.co.uk.

New Statesman: Lay off Murdoch, says leaked Labour memo

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The New Statesman’s Dan Hodges claims to have obtained an email sent on behalf of Ed Miliband’s director of strategy Tom Baldwin to all shadow cabinet teams.

The email reportedly

warns Labour spokespeople to avoid linking hacking with the BSkyB bid, to accept ministerial assurances that meetings with Rupert Murdoch are not influencing that process and to ensure that complaints about tapping are made in a personal, not shadow ministerial, capacity.

Full story on the New Statesman at this link.

FT editor criticises Fleet Street for ‘conspiracy of silence’ over phone hacking

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Financial Times editor Lionel Barber accused Fleet Street of being ruled by a ‘conspiracy of silence’ over the News of the World phone-hacking scandal, and said it was because of other newspapers being involved in the so-called “dark arts”.

Barber was giving the Hugh Cudlipp lecture last night at the London College of Communication.

Below is an excerpt from his 5000-word speech, a full version of which can be found here.

The phone-hacking scandal marks a watershed – not just for News International but also for tabloid journalism. True, the practice of phone-hacking was widespread (and not only among the tabloids). The Information Commissioner’s report in 2006 showed that 305 journalists used private investigators. The number may well have been higher. And yet, beyond the conviction of one News of the World journalist and one private investigator, the infamous Glenn Mulcaire, no serious action was taken against them; not by the police, not by the courts, and not by the Press Complaints Commission.

The PCC was supine at best. And while the Metropolitan Police has now re-opened its inquiry, many questions remain about why it did not pursue the original News of the World investigation with sufficient rigour.

Most important of all, the newspaper industry itself did not take the issue seriously or seek to establish the truth. Indeed, aside from the lead taken by the Guardian, which was followed by the FT, BBC and Independent, the rest of the newspaper industry took a pass on the News of the World phone-hacking story – almost certainly because they too were involved in “dark arts”.

Yesterday the Press Complaints Commission announced it was setting up a phone-hacking review committee to draw together the lessons learned as a result of the outcomes of the relevant police inquiries and ongoing legal actions in the phone hacking case.

The Metropolitan police are currently investigating the use of phone hacking by the News of the World after reopening the case earlier this month.

BBC apologises for not contacting News of the World over phone-hacking allegation

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The BBC apologised today for not putting phone-hacking related allegations against the News of the World, reported by the BBC this morning, to the tabloid.

The broadcaster claimed yesterday to have obtained legal documents which suggest hacking by News of the World journalists may have been going on as recently as last year.

The News of the World earlier today accused the BBC of running a “misleading report”.

We have carried out an extensive investigation led by a team of independent forensic specialists and we have found no evidence whatsoever to support this allegation.

The civil litigation is ongoing, as is the internal investigation and until both are concluded it would be inappropriate to comment further. However we are disappointed the BBC chose to lead with this misleading report without giving the News of the World an opportunity to respond.

In a statement, the BBC said it stands by the story but “acknowledge that we should have put the allegations directly to the News of The World and have apologised to them for not doing so”.

We have carried their subsequent press statement on all outlets covering the story.

Director of public prosecutions issues new statement on phone hacking

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The director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer QC issued a statement last night via the Crown Prosecution Service blog to say that evidence relating to recent allegations of phone hacking, as well as new “substantive” allegations, should be subject to “the same rigorous assessment as Alison Levitt QC is applying to material already in the possession of the Metropolitan Police Service”.

I have asked Alison Levitt QC (who has had no previous involvement in the case) to take a robust approach with a view to advising whether the Metropolitan Police Service should carry out any further investigation or deciding whether any prosecutions can be brought.

This builds upon the previous request by the MPS to the CPS to assess all the material relevant to phone hacking.

Earlier this month the CPS announced that it will conduct a “comprehensive assessment” of evidence held by the Metropolitan Police.

Last night’s statement followed allegations that phone-hacking scandal was “endemic” throughout Fleet Street by lawyer Mark Stephens, and reports that lawyer Mark Lewis has been instructed by four clients with complaints against other national newspapers.