tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14253405904364229222024-03-07T23:41:54.753-08:00Hacking NewsRay Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09002489533163106391noreply@blogger.comBlogger97125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1425340590436422922.post-4827044941943603542012-10-09T23:04:00.000-07:002012-10-09T23:04:13.652-07:00Australian pension fund calls for Rupert Murdoch to quit as chairman of News Corp<br />
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Rupert Murdoch is facing calls from Australian pension funds to step down as chairman of News Corp, as a shareholder revolt spreads to the media magnate’s native country.</h2>
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<span class="caption" style="color: #404040; font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 1.38em; margin: 0px 5px 0px 0px;">Prime Minister David Cameron with News Corporation's chairman and chief executive Rupert Murdoch</span> <span class="credit" style="color: #999999; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.38em;">Photo: Julian Andrews</span></div>
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The Australian Council of Superannuation Investors (ASCI), which represents funds with more than A$350bn (£222bn) in assets, has become the latest body to demand that the 81-year old relinquish the chairmanship of the company he founded. The pressure is mounting on Mr Murdoch to dilute the control he wields in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal that forced News Corp to close The News of the World newspaper and has left it facing multiple investigations.</div>
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“ASCI recognises that some change has occurred at the board level in 2012, however it remains paramount that News Corp has a truly independent board, both independent of management and family,” said Ann Byrne, the group’s chief executive.</div>
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The billionaire will face the renewed challenge to his grip on the company at News Corp’s annual shareholder meeting in Los Angeles later this month. Like UK pension fund Hermes earlier this week, the ASCI is putting its muscle behind a resolution that will be presented at the meeting.</div>
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News Corp’s board was the target of criticism by corporate governance critics before the phone-hacking scandal, and the company is adding new faces to its roll of directors. Former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe and Elaine Chao, who worked for former US president George W Bush, have both been nominated.</div>
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The ASCI is also recommending its members vote down News Corp’s renumeration report for top executives, as well as its dual-class share structure. The latter ensures that the Murdoch family controls almost 40pc of the voting rights at the company.</div>
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News Corp’s board has advised shareholders to vote against the plan for an independent chairman, and Mr Murdoch is expected to give a robust defence of his dual role as chairman and chief executive when he takes the stage at the meeting.</div>
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Although Mr Murdoch is now a US citizen, News Corp remains a major media company in Australia. Its sharesare also listed in Sydney.</div>
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Ray Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09002489533163106391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1425340590436422922.post-17269392478944837622012-08-04T05:22:00.004-07:002012-08-04T05:22:47.314-07:00Phone hacking: Met chiefs given £300,000 payoffs after resigning<br />
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<span style="color: lime;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />The senior Scotland Yard figures who resigned in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal shared payoffs totalling more than £300,000.</span></h2>
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<span style="color: lime;">Britain’s top policeman, the country’s head of counter-terrorism and the Metropolitan Police’s press chief all stepped down from the force a year ago over their links to the News of the World.</span></div>
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<span style="color: lime;">But although all three quit in the face of public anger and scrutiny from MPs over the close relationship between the police and the tabloid newspaper, rather than being dismissed, it has now emerged for the first time that they received substantial payoffs.</span></div>
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<span style="color: lime;">The force’s accounts, disclosed by <i>The Daily Telegraph</i>, show that the Commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, was given £176,838 “compensation for loss of office” after his shock resignation last July.</span></div>
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<span style="color: lime;">He stepped down over his decision to employ as a PR adviser Neil Wallis, a former deputy editor at the News of the World, and his free £12,000 stay at a spa resort for which Mr Wallis worked.</span></div>
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<span style="color: lime;">Sir Paul’s total remuneration for 2011-12 came to £275,263, even though he worked at Scotland Yard for just three months of the financial year. Sources said he chose to clear his desk within two weeks and did not ask for any compensation, but Met contracts mean that he was paid for the rest of his notice period.</span></div>
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<span style="color: lime; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.48em;">The accounts also show that Assistant Commissioner John Yates received £86,382 compensation when he announced his resignation just a day after Sir Paul. He had faced criticism for not fully re-opening the phone-hacking probe when new evidence emerged in 2009, and was investigated for giving a job to Mr Wallis’s daughter, although he was later cleared of misconduct.</span></div>
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<span style="color: lime;">Mr Yates’s total remuneration for the year came to £237,244.</span></div>
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<span style="color: lime;">Dick Fedorcio, the Met’s Director of Public Affairs, received a £50,503 payoff after he resigned at the end of March.</span></div>
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<span style="color: lime;">He was placed on extended leave in the summer after it emerged that he had given Mr Wallis’s firm a £24,000 contract, and stepped down when the force opened gross misconduct proceedings against him.</span></div>
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<span style="color: lime;">Mr Fedorcio’s package came to £175,206 for the full year.</span></div>
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<span style="color: lime;">Meanwhile Martin Tiplady, Scotland Yard’s Director of Human Resources, was paid £259,462 after resigning in April 2011.</span></div>
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<span style="color: lime;">Another Assistant Commissioner, Ian McPherson, was given £25,603 when he resigned in November.</span></div>
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<span style="color: lime;">In addition the Met spent £45million on voluntary redundancy payments for 1,166 other staff.</span></div>
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<span style="color: lime;">Jenny Jones, Deputy Chairman of the Police and Crime Committee on the London Assembly, said: “I’m absolutely appalled. As far as I’m concerned, if somebody resigns they should walk away from the job and not get a penny for it.</span></div>
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<span style="color: lime;">“I think they should have been embarrassed to take the money. It’s taxpayers’ money – it’s not for frittering away on people who chose to resign.”</span></div>
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<span style="color: lime;">The payments were agreed by the now-disbanded Metropolitan Police Authority and its successor body, the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime.</span></div>
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<span style="color: lime;">A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said: “Upon leaving the MPS, individuals may have entered into discussions with the MPA / MOPC regarding their contractual position and recompense.</span></div>
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<span style="color: lime;">“The outcomes of discussions or agreements are a matter for each individual and we will not be commenting on specific cases.”</span></div>
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<span style="color: lime;">The Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime said that the payments were made in line with “contractual obligations”.</span></div>
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</div>Ray Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09002489533163106391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1425340590436422922.post-28974190248828405092012-07-11T05:42:00.002-07:002012-07-11T05:42:48.993-07:00Leveson Inquiry: misbehaving newspapers should be fined £1 million, says Lord Black<br />
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<span style="color: lime;">Newspapers and magazines would be fined up to £1 million for the most serious “breakdowns in ethical behaviour” under a new system of regulation suggested to the Leveson Inquiry.</span></h2>
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<span style="color: lime;"><span class="caption" style="font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 1.38em; margin: 0px 5px 0px 0px;">Lord Black was director of the PCC between 2000 and 2006</span> </span></div>
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<span style="color: lime;">Lord Black of Brentwood, chairman of the Press Standards Board of Finance, the co-ordinating body for newspaper and magazine publishers’ trade associations, said “serious” financial penalties should be legally enforceable by a new watchdog.</span></div>
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<span style="color: lime;">But he urged the Inquiry chairman, Lord Justice Leveson, to resist any</span></div>
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<span style="color: lime;">form of statutory regulation, saying any body policing the media must be independent of Parliament.</span></div>
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<span style="color: lime;">Lord Black, who is Executive Director of Telegraph Media Group, publisher of The Daily Telegraph, said the system he was suggesting was “future proof” because it could be applied to print and digital news organisations alike.</span></div>
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<span style="color: lime;">He is one of a number of senior figures within the media invited by Lord Justice Leveson to submit ideas for a more robust replacement for the current watchdog body, the Press Complaints Commission.</span></div>
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<span style="color: lime;">Lord Black said the PCC had “lost the confidence of the public” because of its “inadequate” response to the phone-hacking scandal.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: lime; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.48em;">He said his proposal was backed by the UK’s four main newspaper and magazine publishers’ trade bodies, The Newspaper Society, The Newspaper Publishers Association, The Scottish Newspaper Society and the Professional Publishers Association.</span></div>
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<span style="color: lime;">The proposal involves a complaints committee which would deal with complaints against the media, and a separate investigations and compliance panel with the power to call witnesses and demand documents as it looked into breaches of ethical standards.</span></div>
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<span style="color: lime;">The two arms of a new regulator would be overseen by an independent trust board, with members of the public making up the majority of its members, Lord Black said.</span></div>
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<span style="color: lime;">Publishers would sign up to a five-year rolling contract with the regulator, paying annual fees, and would face legally-enforceable penalties enshrined in the contract for any transgressions.</span></div>
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<span style="color: lime;">“This gives the new regulator an enforceable legal basis on which to work without the need for any form of statutory intervention,” said Lord Black.</span></div>
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<span style="color: lime;">Financial penalties would be decided by the trust board, which would have the power to levy fines of up to £1m for “systemic breakdowns in ethical behaviour”, he suggested.</span></div>
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<span style="color: lime;">He said any publisher who left the voluntary regulatory system would be liable for future fees covered in the contract.</span></div>
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<span style="color: lime;">They could also face other sanctions, he added, such as the withdrawal of press cards from their journalists, the withdrawal of access to agency copy and the loss of a proposed “kite mark”, which would make it harder to attract advertising.</span></div>
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</div>Ray Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09002489533163106391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1425340590436422922.post-85529745254616264882012-07-05T03:04:00.001-07:002012-07-05T03:04:47.561-07:00Phone hacking police arrest man on conspiracy to pervert justice<br />
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<span style="color: yellow;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />Detectives investigating phone hacking have arrested a 26-year-old man on suspicion of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, Scotland Yard said.</span></h2>
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<span class="caption" style="line-height: 1.38em; margin: 0px 5px 0px 0px;"><b><span style="color: yellow; font-size: x-small;">The man is the 24th person arrested as part of Operation Weeting.</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="color: yellow;">The man was arrested at a residential address in Surrey earlier today and will be questioned at a London police station.</span></div>
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<span style="color: yellow;">The arrest was made as part of the Operation Weeting investigation into hacking of voicemail boxes.</span></div>
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<span style="color: yellow;">The man is the 24th person arrested as part of Operation Weeting. Six people - including former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks and her racehorse trainer husband Charlie - have been charged in connection with the inquiry.</span></div>
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<span style="color: yellow;">Mrs Brooks faces three charges of conspiring to pervert the course of justice, while her husband is charged with one count of the same offence.</span></div>
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<span style="color: yellow;">The couple are due to enter pleas when they appear at Southwark Crown Court in London on September 26.</span></div>
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<span style="color: yellow;">Fourteen others remain on bail pending further inquiries while four were released with no further action.</span></div>
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<span style="color: yellow;">Three people arrested yesterday as part of Operation Elveden, the Metropolitan Police investigation into suspected corrupt payments to public officials, were later released on bail.</span></div>
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<span style="color: yellow;">Former Mirror journalist Greig Box-Turnbull, 37, who worked for Trinity Mirror until taking voluntary redundancy in March, a 46-year-old prison worker and a 50-year-old woman were arrested yesterday morning on suspicion of corruption, conspiracy to commit bribery and conspiracy to cause misconduct in a public office.</span></div>
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<span style="color: yellow;">The 46-year-old man was bailed to return to a London police station today.</span></div>
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<span style="color: yellow;">Box-Turnbull and the 50-year-old woman are due to answer bail at separate London police stations in late October.</span></div>
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<span style="color: yellow;">Box-Turnbull is working for Westminster Council but was on secondment to Richmond Council.</span></div>
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<span style="color: yellow;">A Westminster Council spokesman said yesterday: "We have yet to speak to the employee. With the possibility of further legal action it would clearly be inappropriate to comment further."</span></div>
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<span style="color: yellow;">Trinity Mirror has not been contacted by Scotland Yard about the arrest, and it is unclear whether any allegations are linked to Box-Turnbull's work for the Daily Mirror, a spokesman said.</span></div>
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<span style="color: yellow;">So far 37 people have been arrested as part of Operation Elveden.</span></div>
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</div>Ray Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09002489533163106391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1425340590436422922.post-63270085368750104322012-04-19T22:06:00.003-07:002012-04-19T22:06:55.857-07:00Leveson Inquiry: Rupert Murdoch and son to appear<br />
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News Corporation boss Rupert Murdoch is to appear before the Leveson Inquiry on Wednesday and Thursday next week.</div>
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His son James Murdoch will appear on Tuesday, the inquiry also confirmed.</div>
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Rupert Murdoch will be questioned about practices at his British newspapers in the light of the phone-hacking scandal that resulted in the closure of News of the World (NOTW).</div>
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James Murdoch resigned as the executive chairman of News International in February.</div>
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It will be the first time either of the Murdochs have appeared in front of the Leveson inquiry, which is looking into media standards.</div>
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News International has been at the centre of a scandal regarding the culture, practices and ethics of the press.</div>
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The Murdochs are likely to be asked whether they were aware of allegations that the practice of illegally intercepting voicemails went beyond News of the World royal reporter Clive Goodman, who was jailed in 2007.</div>
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Last year James Murdoch - who stood down as head of the UK newspaper business that owns the Sun, Times and Sunday Times - told MPs he had no prior knowledge of the scale of wrongdoing on the newspapers he controlled.</div>
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But in December, an email from 2008 was released indicating he had been copied into messages referring to the "rife" practice of phone hacking at the News of the World.</div>
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Mr Murdoch has said although he was copied into the email, he did not read it fully.</div>
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Rupert Murdoch is also expected to face questioning about claims that he and his top executives were too close to British politicians and police officers.</div>
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He is likely to be questioned on what steps were taken to ensure that his UK titles were acting within the law and within the code of practice for journalists administered by the Press Complaints Commission.</div>
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In common with other witnesses at the inquiry they will also be asked about his thoughts for how the press should be regulated in Britain in the future.</div>
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When questioned by MPs about the scandal last July, Rupert Murdoch said that his company had been caught with "dirty hands" and apologised for its actions.</div>
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He admitted that appearing in front of the Culture select Committee last summer was the most "humble" day of his life.</div>
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Aidan Barclay, chairman of the Telegraph group and Evgeny Lebedev, chairman of Independent Print Limited and Evening Standard Limited are also due to give evidence to the inquiry on Monday.</div>Ray Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09002489533163106391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1425340590436422922.post-8278971902296624702012-04-10T21:56:00.001-07:002012-04-10T21:56:26.467-07:00Murdoch knew about Sky News hacking allegations ‘months ago’<br />
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James Murdoch and the BSkyB board were warned “a number of months ago” about evidence of illegal email hacking at Sky News but did not make a public announcement because they said the police had already been informed, senior sources at the broadcaster have disclosed.</h2>
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<span class="caption" style="color: #404040; font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 1.38em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 5px; margin-top: 0px;"><b>Some News Corp investors are said to be concerned that the hacking contagion could spread to BSkyB from News International.</b></span> </div>
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Sky News, owned and operated by BSkyB, admitted last week that a reporter had been authorised to hack emails in two cases. The channel defended its actions saying the information was “in the public interest”.</div>
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One instance involved an investigation into John Darwin, the “canoe man” who faked his death and fled to Panama in 2002. BSkyB’s admission came two days after James Murdoch stepped down as chairman, leading to accusations that the two events were linked. BSkyB said that was not the case.</div>
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Some News Corp investors are said to be concerned that the hacking contagion could spread to BSkyB from News International. One close observer said it would have been better if BSkyB had made the announcement about the hacking when the board was first told. BSkyB has launched a wider inquiry into operations at Sky News and has said it has found no evidence of wrong-doing.</div>
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John Ryley, the head of Sky News, said the actions were “editorially justified” and involved suspected crimes. In the case of Anne Darwin (John Darwin’s wife, who was convicted of fraud), emails were handed to the police.</div>
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Police are now looking into the hacked emails. The Sky News executive who gave the authorisation, Simon Cole, has now taken early retirement although BSkyB said the two matters were not connected.</div>
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Nicholas Ferguson, the new chairman of BSkyB, is likely to be in position for “a number of years” according to those close to him.</div>
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There had been speculation that his would be an interim appointment until the board found a chairman who could reassure investors he was independent of News Corp, which owns 39pc of BSkyB.</div>
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Mr Ferguson has been on the BSkyB board since 2004 and is a firm supporter of Mr Murdoch. Tom Mockridge, the CEO of News International, which is owned by News Corp, is now BSkyB’s deputy chairman.</div>
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</div>Ray Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09002489533163106391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1425340590436422922.post-62145675139533881522012-03-14T21:32:00.000-07:002012-03-14T21:32:15.958-07:00Rebekah and Charlie Brooks arrest: one minute they were off racing, the next they were under arrest<br />
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<br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />Charlie Brooks should have been spending Tuesday at Cheltenham Festival with his wife Rebekah enjoying “the happiest moment of my year”, as the racehorse trainer described it.</h2>
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<span class="caption" style="color: #404040; font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 1.38em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 5px; margin-top: 0px;">Mr Brooks and his wife were being interviewed at separate police stations after being arrested by officers investigating phone hacking at the News of the World</span> </div>
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In his racing column in The Daily Telegraph on Monday, Mr Brooks purred at the prospect of his first pint of Guinness, which he planned to drink three hours before the meeting began.</div>
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“At that moment, I think to myself every year; I’m here, I’m alive and I’ve got a full pint in my hand,” he wrote.</div>
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But instead of propping up the bar at one of the five pubs he intended to visit, Mr Brooks and his wife were being interviewed at separate police stations after being arrested by officers investigating phone hacking at the News of the World.</div>
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For Mrs Brooks, a former editor of the Sunday tabloid, it was a familiar experience; she was held last year and questioned about both phone hacking and corrupt payments to public officials.</div>
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Mr Brooks, an old Etonian friend of David Cameron, was arrested for the first time after he found himself being dragged into the scandal following his alleged involvement in a bizarre episode involving a laptop found in a dustbin.</div>
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A senior security man at News International was understood to be among those held yesterday, after victims of phone hacking obtained evidence of the systematic deletion of compromising emails and the destruction of computers used by News of the World staff.</div>
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Mr and Mrs Brooks were at their home in the Cotswolds, expecting to head off to Cheltenham when they were arrested between 5am and 7am.</div>
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In January the couple became parents of a surrogate daughter, Scarlett Anne Mary Brooks, who was born at the Portland private hospital in central London.</div>
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They could have been forgiven for thinking they would be spending a few days relaxing, especially after the recent “horsegate” disclosure that Scotland Yard lent a retired police horse to Mrs Brooks, which David Cameron had ridden.</div>
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Instead, they both found themselves under arrest for an offence that could potentially have far worse implications than the phone hacking which allegedly took place on Mrs Brooks’s watch.</div>
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Mr Brooks, 49, was not even married to the former News of the World editor at the time the hacking was allegedly going on, but he came to the attention of police when his laptop was handed in to police the day after his wife’s arrest last July.</div>
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Officers from Operation Weeting, the investigation into phone-hacking, and Operation Elveden, the investigation into illicit payments to public officials, had spent nine hours questioning Mrs Brooks on July 17, two days after she resigned as chief executive of News International. She has been on bail since.</div>
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The following day a laptop computer and an iPad belonging to Mr Brooks were handed in to police by a security guard at the Design Centre apartment complex in Chelsea Harbour, west London, where Mr and Mrs Brooks have a £1.5 million flat.</div>
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A bag containing the computers, a phone and some paperwork had been found in an underground car park by a cleaner and dumped in a bin, where it was found by the security guard.</div>
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Mr Brooks said at the time that his briefcase had been dropped off and “there was a misunderstanding about collecting them by a mate”.</div>
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He told The Daily Telegraph he was “glued to Sky News” at the time, and that the briefcase “ended up with the trash”.</div>
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He added in an email that it was “all my personal info, nothing to do with my wife or search warrant”.</div>
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He said he had contacted the police when he realised the bag was missing, and that they confirmed the items had been handed in.</div>
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Mr Brooks was taken to a police station in Buckinghamshire yesterday while his 43-year-old wife was taken to a police station in Oxfordshire.</div>
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She is likely to have been questioned over disclosures in recent weeks about the deletion of emails and the destruction of computers used by News of the World reporters, which emerged during High Court hearings at which dozens of hacking victims accepted damages from the publisher of the defunct newspaper.</div>
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Mrs Brooks was editor of the tabloid from 2000-2003, then served as editor of The Sun until Sep 2009, when she became chief executive of News International.</div>
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Last month The Daily Telegraph disclosed that executives at News Group Newspapers had formulated an “email deletion policy” in November 2009 to “eliminate in a consistent manner” emails that could cause trouble.</div>
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Staff were told to destroy emails that “could be unhelpful in the context of future litigation in which a News International company is a defendant”.</div>
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Papers released by a High Court judge showed that hundreds of thousands of emails were deleted “on nine separate occasions”. One senior executive told a member of staff to remove seven boxes of paper records from the company’s storage facility, it emerged.</div>
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Lawyers for some of the hacking victims told the High Court at a separate hearing that computers used by News of the World journalists implicated in the hacking scandal were destroyed in 2010 as part of a “conspiracy” to cover up the extent of phone hacking and the identities of those who knew about it.</div>
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Mr Justice Vos, who is presiding over the hacking cases, said he had seen evidence that raised compelling questions about whether News Group “concealed, told lies, actively tried to get off scot free”.</div>
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Four men, aged 39, 46, 38 and 48 were arrested in co-ordinated raids in Hampshire, Hertfordshire and London, taking the total number of arrests under Operation Weeting to 29.</div>
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A spokesman for Mrs Brooks declined to comment.</div>
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</div>Ray Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09002489533163106391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1425340590436422922.post-24735523687117623262012-03-06T20:26:00.004-08:002012-03-06T20:26:59.910-08:00Deputy mayor Kit Malthouse questioned hacking investigation<br />
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<br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />Boris Johnson’s right hand man questioned Scotland Yard decision to re-open the phone hacking investigation, describing it as “political and media-driven hysteria”, the Leveson inquiry has heard.</h2>
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<img alt="Kit Malthouse, deputy Mayor for Policing Deputy mayor questioned hacking investigation " height="388" src="http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02158/kit_jpg_2158890b.jpg" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; display: block;" width="620" /><div class="artImageExtras" style="font-family: arial; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
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<b><span class="caption" style="color: #404040; font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 1.38em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 5px; margin-top: 0px;">Kit Malthouse, London's deputy Mayor </span> </b></div>
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Kit Malthouse, London’s deputy mayor, questioned Sir Paul Stephenson, the then commissioner, over the level of resources the force was devoting to the inquiry “on several occasions”.</div>
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Last night Labour MP Chris Bryant, who is suing the Metropolitan Police over allegations that he was not notified that his phone was hacked by the News of the World, called for Mr Malthouse to step down from his position.</div>
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The investigation was re-opened in January 2011 following a series of claims in civil cases that phone hacking at the News of the World went wider than one “rogue reporter”.</div>
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Operation Weeting was launched while Sir Paul was on sick leave. He did not return until April 2011 when more than 40 officers were devoted to the inquiry.</div>
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Sir Paul told the Leveson inquiry that the decision to allocate significant resources to the investigation was questioned by Mr Malthouse who was then chair of the Metropolitan :Police Authority.</div>
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He said: “On several occasions after Operation Weeting had started and I had returned from sick leave, the Chair of the MPA, Kit Malthouse, expressed a view that we should not be devoting this level of resources to the phone hacking inquiry as a consequence of a largely political and media-driven “level of hysteria”.</div>
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“Whilst understanding his desire to maximise the resources devoted to current issues of crime and public safety, I pointed out that the disclosure requirements arising from the civil cases left us with little choice but to invest significant resources in servicing this matter.”</div>
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Previously Boris Johnson, the London Mayor, had described the phone hacking scandal as “a load of old codswallop cooked up by the Labour party”.</div>
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Last night Mr Bryant said that Sir Paul’s evidence “makes it clear that from the highest political level Johnson and Malthouse have intentionally sought to close down the phone-hacking investigation.</div>
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“This amounts to a clear political intervention designed to intimidate the Met into dropping an investigation.”</div>
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A spokesman for Mr Malthouse was unavailable for comment.</div>
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Sir Paul was the first of four former commissioners scheduled to give evidence to the inquiry this week.</div>
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He was questioned about his relationship with Neil Wallis, the former deputy editor of the News of the World, with whom he had six meetings between 2008 and 2010.</div>
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Sir Paul said that he would not describe the pair as “friends” but accepted that some of the meetings were private and that he had paid personally for drinks or a meal.</div>
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Mr Wallis went on to work for Scotland Yard before being arrested in Operation Weeting last year.</div>
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In Sir Paul’s witness statement he defended the force’s decision to hire Mr Wallis pointing out that Andy Coulson, who resigned as editor of the News of the World over the phone hacking scandal, had been employed by David Cameron.</div>
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He said: “The man who did resign and who had been Mr Wallis’ senior - Andy Coulson – had subsequently been re-employed advising at the highest levels of government.</div>
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“Therefore, having played no part in engaging Mr Wallis, I was aware of no issues that could reasonably raise any level of suspicion or concern.”</div>
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Sir Paul’s evidence also addressed concerns that the force had failed when they decided not to re-open the phone hacking investigation amid concerns aired by the Guardian and the New York Times in 2009 and 2010.</div>
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Sir Paul tasked the then assistant commissioner John Yates to consider whether they should re-open the case. But yesterday Lord Justice Leveson described the force’s review as a “back of the envelope job”</div>
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Sir Paul admitted he had not read the 2009 Guardian article but he said he was “satisfied” with Mr Yates’s decisions, adding that he was “only as good as the briefings” he was given. He later admitted that the force had adopted a "defensive mindset" and should have been more "challenging" towards the claims that the original investigation had failed.</div>
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The former commissioner also spoke about allegations that senior Scotland Yard officers were too close to the media.</div>
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He admitted that a “small number” of senior officers were “leaking and gossiping” to the media during his time as deputy commissioner and were closer to the press “than I considered necessary”.</div>
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</div>Ray Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09002489533163106391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1425340590436422922.post-15492361625139171792012-03-04T20:29:00.000-08:002012-03-04T20:29:14.920-08:00Horsegate: Downing Street denies 12 month 'cover-up'<br />
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A former aide to David Cameron has been accused of attempting to cover up the Prime Minister's links with former News International boss Rebekah Brooks more than a year ago.</h2>
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The Prime Minister was last week forced to admit that he had ridden a horse loaned to Mrs Brooks by the Metropolitan police with her huband.</div>
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But the<i> Mail on Sunday</i> said that it had first asked Andy Coulson, former editor of The Sun and former head of communications at Downing Street, about rumours that Mr Cameron went riding with Charlie Brooks, a racing trainer and <i>Telegraph</i> columnist, in late 2010.</div>
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It said Mr Brooks, an old friend from Mr Cameron’s Eton school days, had been giving Mr Cameron tips at riding with a hunt. But Mr Coulson categorically denied that the Prime Minister had ever ridden with Charlie Brooks.</div>
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The newspaper reported that he stated that "Mr Cameron had not had lessons from Mr Brooks and had not been riding with him”.</div>
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Last week Mr Cameron was forced to admit after days of questioning from The Daily Telegraph that he had indeed gone riding with Mr Brooks, on a retired police horse called Raisa which had been loaned to Rebekah Brooks by the Metropolitan Police.</div>
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He told a press conference after a European summit: “Before the election I did go riding with him. He has a number of different horses and yes one of them was this police horse Raisa, which I did ride.”</div>
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Last night, Mr Cameron’s aides attempted to distance themselves from any suggestion that they had tried to conceal the fact Mr Cameron went riding with Mr Brooks.</div>
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One aide said: “I am absolutely certain we would not have given a categorical denial to something that was true. We would not have denied something that is true. I don’t know how that situation came about.”</div>
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The aide said Mr Cameron rode with Mr Brooks on a “handful of occasions” although Mrs Brooks spokesman said the pair had ridden together “many times”.</div>
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Downing Street also said Mr Cameron had not ridden with hounds in an official hunt since the nation-wide ban was introduced in February 2005. The aide said: "He has not taken part in hunting since that time."</div>
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It emerged last week that Mr Cameron rode Raisa several times, while Mrs Brooks, rode her only once because of the horse’s difficult temperament.</div>
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There was some respite for Mr Cameron on Sunday when Mrs Brooks insisted that she had never ridden with Mr Cameron. The Prime Minister has insisted since last Thursday that he could not recall riding with Mrs Brooks.</div>
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David Wilson, Mrs Brooks; spokesman, said: “They have never ridden together. She is unequivocal – she has never ridden with David Cameron.”</div>
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Mr Wilson said: Raisa was “wasn’t suitable for a novice rider” because she was traumatised during a 13 spell in the Met’s riot squad.</div>
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He added: “Charlie could ride it but Rebekah couldn’t. It was apparent on the first day she tried to ride it. She did not take on the horse to ride it but as a charitable deed to assist the Met.</div>
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They were looking to home a horse that would otherwise have ended up in the knackers’ yard.” Mr Coulson did not return telephone calls on Sunday. Mr Coulson was unavailable to comment.</div>
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</div>Ray Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09002489533163106391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1425340590436422922.post-84067642419522062422012-03-01T21:23:00.004-08:002012-03-01T21:23:52.510-08:00David Cameron 'likely' to have ridden Rebekah Brooks’ ex-police horse, Number 10 says<br />
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David Cameron is "likely" to have ridden Rebekah Brooks’ ex-police horse, it has emerged</h2>
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<span class="caption" style="color: #404040; font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 1.38em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 5px; margin-top: 0px;">David Cameron is likely to be questioned about his friendship with Mrs Brooks by Lord Justice Leveson as part of his inquiry into press ethics</span> </div>
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The disclosure raises questions about the closeness between the Prime Minister and Mrs Brooks, the former tabloid editor who quit as chief executive of News International at the height of the phone hacking scandal last summer.</div>
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Mrs Brooks was lent a retired police horse by the Metropolitan Police for two years. The horse, called Raisa, was stabled at Mrs Brooks' farm in the Cotswolds from 2008 to 2010, before she was handed back to Scotland Yard.</div>
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After three days of refusing to say whether Mr Cameron had ridden the horse, aides last night disclosed that in all probability he did, although he could not be sure as he rode several of Mr Brooks’ horses.</div>
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One of the Prime Minister’s aides said: “It is highly possible that he was on that horse. It is likely that he rode that horse. He used a number of Charlie’s horses.”</div>
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She also confirmed that it was possible Mr Cameron had also gone riding with Mrs Brooks, because he could not be “100 per cent sure”. The aide said: “He has no recollection of ever going riding with Rebekah Brooks.”</div>
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Mr Cameron also admitted that he had been riding with Mr Brooks, a neighbour and former school friend from Eton public school, who is also a columnist on <i>The Sunday Telegraph</i>.</div>
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He told <i>Channel 5 </i>News: “It’s a matter of record that I have ridden horses with Rebekah Brooks’ husband in my constituency. Since becoming Prime Minister, I may have got on a horse once, but not that one.”</div>
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<i>The Daily Telegraph</i> has established that the horse was lent to Mrs Brooks in 2008 following discussions with Dick Fedorcio, the Met Police’s director of public affairs.</div>
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Raisa was returned to the care of Scotland Yard in early 2010, before the general election, and put out to pasture in Norfolk. She died a few months later.</div>
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Last night Labour MP Tom Watson said Raisa threatened to symbolise the cosy friendship between the key players embroiled in the phone hacking scandal.</div>
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He told <i>The Daily Telegraph</i>: “This horse is becoming the symbol of this scandal. It shows how powerful media players and politicians got too close.”</div>
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</div>Ray Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09002489533163106391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1425340590436422922.post-34393809752268185602012-02-27T03:34:00.001-08:002012-02-27T03:34:34.001-08:00Charlotte Church settles £600,000 damages claim with NI over phone hacking<br />
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Singer Charlotte Church and her parents settled her phone-hacking damages action for £600,000 at the High Court today.</h2>
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<span class="caption" style="color: #404040; font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 1.38em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 5px; margin-top: 0px;">Charlotte Church and her mother Maria have agreed damages with News Internatinoal worth £600,000.</span> </div>
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Last week, lawyers for the 25-year-old and her parents, James and Maria, confirmed that terms had been agreed with News of the World publisher News Group Newspapers (NGN).</div>
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Miss Church was present at the London court for the reading of a statement resolving her claim that 33 articles in the now defunct Sunday newspaper were the product of hacking into her family's voicemails.</div>
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The settlement includes £300,000 in legal costs and a public apology.</div>
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Miss Church, 26, her mother, Maria, and her adoptive father, James, had complained that the News of the World published distressing stories about them that had originated from voicemail messages hacked by Glenn Mulcaire, the private detective jailed for phone hacking in 2007</div>
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Their case against NGN had been due for a trial at the High Court today, but Mike Brookes, who represents the family, said last week that “we have agreed terms” with NGN.</div>
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Five other outstanding cases against NGN from alleged victims of hacking, including the footballer Ryan Giggs, will also be discussed when their lawyers attend a case management hearing before High Court judge Mr Justice Vos today.</div>
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They are the only outstanding cases lodged with the High Court before a cut-off date in October last year for the first batch of claims against NGN to be dealt with by the court.</div>
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More than 50 other cases have been settled over the past two months.</div>
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Speaking during an application by the Guardian newspaper for the release of court documents relating to phone hacking last week, Mr Justice Vos said: “I’m extremely keen that the momentum of this litigation should not be lost by the fact that the cases that were set for trial are settled.</div>
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“These cases should be determined quickly.”</div>
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He told lawyers for the five other outstanding claimants that he expects an update on the cases next week, and also wants to be told about other cases that are in the pipeline, which are likely to include that of Cherie Blair, who issued a writ against NGN this week demanding damages for phone hacking.</div>
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Michael Silverleaf QC, representing NGN, said he and the barristers representing the victims had been discussing a system of fast-tracking future claims without the need for individual claims to be lodged separately.</div>
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“I’m confident we will be able to come up with a much more efficient process for dealing with the residual cases,” he said.</div>
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More than 800 likely victims of phone hacking have been identified by the Metropolitan Police after it launched Operation Weeting, a fresh investigation into phone hacking, last year.</div>
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Some, if not all, of the remaining five cases are expected to go to trial. As well as Giggs, they involve Paul Burrell, the former butler to Diana, Princess of Wales, Mary Ellen Field, a former assistant of the model Elle Macpherson, Nicola Phillips, a former assistant of the publicist Max Clifford, and the former Crimewatch co-presenter Jackie Haynes and her husband Dave Cook.</div>
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Unlike the cases which have been settled over the past two months, which were all brought against News Group Newspapers and Glenn Mulcaire, several of the remaining litigants are suing individuals at the News of the World, making their cases more complicated.</div>
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Miss Philips is to ask the Supreme Court to order Mulcaire to answer a series of questions, including whether the News of the World's news editor, Ian Edmondson, asked him to investigate her. Mr Mulcaire has so far refused to answer the questions.</div>
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</div>Ray Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09002489533163106391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1425340590436422922.post-28449666045057109702012-02-23T23:32:00.000-08:002012-02-23T23:33:07.209-08:00Phone hacking: News of the World bosses ordered emails to be deleted<br />
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New evidence of a cover-up of phone hacking at the News of the World has been disclosed in court documents, which show the company created a policy to delete emails which could be used against it in legal proceedings.</h2>
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<b><span class="caption" style="color: #404040; font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 1.38em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 5px; margin-top: 0px;">Charlotte Church, the singer whose hacking case had been expected to go to trial on Monday, has now settled her case.</span> </b></div>
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The documents, released to <i>The Daily Telegraph </i>by a High Court judge, says the policy’s stated aim was “to eliminate in a consistent manner” emails that “could be unhelpful in the context of future litigation in which a News International company is a defendant”.</div>
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Hundreds of thousands of emails were deleted “on nine separate occasions”, computers were destroyed and one senior executive told an underling to remove seven boxes of paper records relating to them from the company’s storage facility.</div>
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Clive Goodman, the royal reporter who was jailed for phone hacking in 2007, claimed during an internal employment hearing that "all of the stories" he wrote in his final two years at the News of the World "were based on phone hacking”, the court papers state.</div>
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The court document was created by lawyers for a series of phone hacking victims and is based on information they have been provided by News International’s Management and Standards Committee.</div>
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It would have been used in any High Court trials had News Group Newspapers, publisher of the now defunct News of the World, not spent millions settling cases out of court.</div>
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It includes detailed information about admissions that NGN would have made had the cases gone to trial.</div>
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The documents were released following a hearing before Mr Justice Vos at which lawyers for News Group said they were adopting a "neutral" position on whether the papers could be released, but did not raise any objections.</div>
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For the first time, it can be disclosed that one reporter, named as Journalist E, carried on intercepting voicemail messages even after the arrest in 2006 of Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator who was later jailed.</div>
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The reporter was one of at least six News of the World journalists who hacked phones themselves.</div>
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However it is details surrounding the cover-up which are the most damning.</div>
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The papers state that from 2008 on, the News of the World had a legal obligation to “preserve all relevant evidence” of phone hacking because it had been notified of civil claims that were pending.</div>
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But in Nov 2009 it created the “Email Deletion Policy” to “eliminate in a consistent manner across News International (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”.</div>
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The document includes emails sent from a senior executive which says that all emails prior to January 2010 would be deleted.</div>
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A further email to a lawyer at News International asks “how are we doing with the…email deletion policy?</div>
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</div>Ray Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09002489533163106391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1425340590436422922.post-42207481810394113022012-02-23T01:52:00.000-08:002012-02-23T01:53:04.320-08:00Cherie Blair sues News of the World over alleged phone-hacking while Tony Blair was prime minister<br />
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<br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />Cherie Blair is to sue the publisher of the News of the World after it emerged she was an alleged victim of phone-hacking while her husband was prime minister.</h2>
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Mrs Blair filed a writ at the High Court in London on Tuesday against News Group Newspapers and Glenn Mulcaire, the private detective jailed in 2007 for voicemail interception.</div>
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Although there have been previous suspicions she was targeted by the News of the World, Mrs Blair has not, so far, been confirmed as a victim of phone hacking.</div>
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If NGN accepts that her phone was hacked, Mrs Blair would become the second figure to have become a victim while living or working in Number 10.</div>
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Earlier this month Tony Blair’s former communications chief, Alastair Campbell, was paid damages by NGN after it admitted hacking his phone.</div>
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Confirmation that Mrs Blair’s phone was also hacked would raise serious questions about security in Downing Street during Mr Blair’s tenure.</div>
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The news comes just a day after it emerged that the singer Charlotte Church and her parents were close to settling their own phone hacking case against NGN, which would have meant there were no outstanding “live” cases against the publisher.</div>
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But Mrs Blair’s claim is the first of what could be dozens of fresh cases against the Rupert Murdoch-owned company, which has already paid out more than £10 million in damages and legal fees to more than 60 victims of phone hacking.</div>
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Lawyers representing hacking victims have said that more than 70 other victims have contacted them with the intention of suing NGN after they were told by the Metropolitan Police that their voicemails had been accessed.</div>
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It means Mrs Blair’s claim could be merely the first in a new wave of hacking claims that could cost NGN millions more in payouts.</div>
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They could include Carole Caplin, Mrs Blair’s former lifestyle adviser, who has been told by police that her phone was hacked in 2002, the year it emerged that her then-boyfriend, the convicted fraudster Peter Foster, had helped Mrs Blair buy two discounted flats in Bristol.</div>
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Alastair Campbell told the Leveson Inquiry last year that he had thought Miss Caplin was leaking information to the press, but had been forced to apologise to her after discovering her phone was hacked.</div>
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He also said he believed a story about Mrs Blair becoming pregnant in 1999 could have been obtained by phone hacking.</div>
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The story appeared in the Daily Mirror but Mr Campbell said “only a tiny number of people in Downing Street knew” about the pregnancy.</div>
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Mrs Blair’s solicitor was not available for comment.</div>
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</div>Ray Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09002489533163106391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1425340590436422922.post-87013381953181726702012-02-12T17:12:00.000-08:002012-02-12T17:12:06.991-08:00Rupert Murdoch faces revolt from angry Sun staff<br />
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<br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />Rupert Murdoch faced revolt from his own staff last night after journalists angry at the arrest of five senior colleagues accused the company of throwing them to the wolves.</h2>
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The 80-year-old media mogul is due to fly into Britain this week to address workers at his Wapping plant and reassure them of his commitment to his remaining UK newspaper titles.</div>
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But he is likely to receive an angry reception after five more journalists on The Sun were arrested as part of Operation Elveden – the police investigation into allegations of bribery.</div>
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The arrests early on Saturday morning were the second batch in a fortnight and sources close to the investigation have indicated that they are unlikely to be the last.</div>
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Journalists at The Sun yesterday accused the company’s Management Standards Committee (MSC), which handed a huge amount of information to detectives, of allowing a “witch-hunt” to take place.</div>
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One angry journalist said the MSC were behaving like “reptiles” in order to protect the reputation of Mr Murdoch’s parent company in the United States.</div>
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Ten senior journalists on the paper have now been arrested and bailed as detectives probe allegations that they illegally paid police officers and other public officials for information.</div>
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But staff at the paper said many of the allegations were “pathetic” and related to matters many years ago where reporters had bought drinks for contacts in the pursuit of legitimate stories.</div>
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Writing in today’s Sun, the newspaper’s influential former political editor, Trevor Kavanagh, questioned the proportion of police resources being used in the inquiry and warned that the heavy handed police tactics left it looking like a “witch hunt”.</div>
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Staff also described a highly charged atmosphere when the paper’s current editor Dominic Mohan spoke to his newsroom yesterday afternoon.</div>
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One source at Wapping said: “There is a real feeling of anger, deepening anger but also defiance about what is going on. But there is not the mood for a strike, as people are loyal to the paper but perhaps not the people who run it."</div>
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“It is looking like a witch hunt now. Some of the allegations being made against people are pathetic – reporters taking contacts out for drinks, meals and the like. The police don't really seem to understand how journalism works.</div>
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"Huge teams of counter-terrorism detectives are turning up at people's homes, going through their children's underwear drawers about things which happened seven or eight years ago. This is behaviour reminiscent of Mugabe.”</div>
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While Mr Murdoch’s attention will this week be focused on The Sun, pressure over the scandal continues to mount in the United States, where shareholders are angry at the damage the scandal is doing to the wider brand.</div>
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It has also now emerged that the Sun’s parent company News Corp could face an investigation by officials under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.</div>
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The law allows American companies to be fined hundreds of millions of dollars for illegal activities overseas.</div>
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The phone hacking scandal at the News of the World has already cost the company more than £125 million and many investors want to see News Corp extricate itself from such a damaging association.</div>
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Mr Murdoch is now likely to face renewed pressure to overhaul how the company is run with experts suggesting he may now be forced to split his roles of chairman and chief executive.</div>
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“From a (News Corp) shareholders point of view, you want this to end and for people to move on," said Charles Elson, director of the Weinberg Centre for Corporate Governance at Delaware University.</div>
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"The key is to make sure it doesn't happen again," he added.</div>
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A memo to News International staff from the company’s chief executive Tom Mockridge assured staff of Mr Murdoch’s continuing determination to own and publish The Sun, which is said to be the newspaper closest to his heart.</div>
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But Tom Watson, the Labour MP and a member of the Culture and Media Select Committee, said the latest development would prove extremely difficult for News Corp to deflect.</div>
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He said: “This moves things on considerably because this is no longer just about hacking phones and it is no longer just about one newspaper.</div>
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“This goes to the very heart of corporate governance. This is now about three newspapers; the News of the World, the Times and the Sun and it involves allegations of phone hacking, email hacking and illegal payments for information.</div>
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“Inevitably it takes it to the top of the company because that is where the culture is set. That is why New York is worried because they know you cannot just blame it on individual rogue reporters.</div>
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“If what we are told is true, if illegal payments have been made to police and other public officials this is hugely damaging. I am certain there will be more arrests at The Sun.”</div>
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He added: “I think he has lost a lot of the trust of the front line staff because what you have got is a lot of very experienced and senior news reporters who now feel that they are being used as pawns in a political game to save the business.”</div>
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Mr Watson added that it had to be Mr Murdoch who bore the ultimate responsibility for what happened in his newsrooms.</div>
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Speaking on The Sunday Politics on BBC ONE he said: “It’s Rupert Murdoch who appoints bullies like Kelvin MacKenzie or small children like Dominic Mohan to run these very big institutions of national newspapers of repute. He’s responsible for the personnel that allow these things to happen and he must take responsibility for it.”</div>
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</div>Ray Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09002489533163106391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1425340590436422922.post-9606621905483875782012-02-10T08:14:00.000-08:002012-02-10T08:14:56.829-08:00Leveson Inquiry: Summary of week 11<br />
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<a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16977959#story_continues_1" style="color: #4a7194; display: inline !important; font-size: 13px; left: -5000px; line-height: 16px; position: absolute; text-decoration: none; top: -5000px;"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px;">his week, the Leveson Inquiry was told of the extent to which police believed phone-hacking had been carried out, heard a robust defence of practices by Fleet Street editors and learned how a political blogger was able to avoid legal action over stories he published.</span>Continue reading the main story</a></h1>
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On Monday Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers revealed 829 people were "likely" victims of phone-hacking by newspapers.</div>
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She is overseeing 90 police officers working on three investigations involving claims of newspaper hacking.</div>
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She told the inquiry 581 people had been contacted, 231 could not be identified and 17 had not been told of their potential involvement due to "operational reasons".</div>
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Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre reappeared before the committee twice this week - on Monday and again on Thursday.</div>
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On Monday Mr Dacre told the inquiry he was aware his paper had used private detectives but not of the extent to which his reporters had done so.</div>
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He said this method of accessing information used to be commonplace in the industry.</div>
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However he said he had never placed a story in the newspaper that he knew had come from phone hacking and was convinced it did not happen.</div>
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"I know of no cases of phone hacking," he said. "Having conducted a major internal inquiry, I am as convinced as I can be that there is no phone hacking on the Daily Mail."</div>
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He also called for a new body to deal with standards in the industry - much like an ombudsman - and said the current press card system was inadequate.</div>
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But on Wednesday Baroness Buscombe, the former chairman of the Press Complaints Commission, said the watchdog had been made a scapegoat over the phone-hacking scandal.</div>
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She told the Leveson Inquiry she had lost trust in editors during her two years in the post and felt they had not told her the truth.</div>
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On Wednesday blogger Paul Staines - who is behind the political website Guido Fawkes - detailed how he avoided legal action by using foreign web hosts.</div>
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He said this forced lawyers to chase stories in different jurisdictions.</div>
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Irish citizen Mr Staines told the Leveson Inquiry into media ethics he did not consider himself bound by UK judges' orders.</div>
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"What I think you're missing is that I'm a citizen of a free republic and, since 1922, I don't have to pay attention to what a British judge orders me to do."</div>
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Paul Dacre was back before the inquiry on Thursday. He was recalled to discuss his description of actor Hugh Grant's allegations about phone hacking at the Mail as "mendacious smears driven by his hatred of the media".</div>
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Meanwhile, that same day, Sir Paul McCartney's former wife Heather Mills told the inquiry she had never authorised former Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan to access her voicemail messages.</div>
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She also criticised the "postage stamp-sized apologies" which newspapers were forced to make following inaccurate stories about her.</div>
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Public relations expert Max Clifford used his session to confirm he received a payout from News of the World after his phone was hacked, but said the public did not care about celebrities who were affected.</div>
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He said: "What really got the British public angry was Milly Dowler and the McCanns. They didn't care about the stars, or me, having their phones hacked. Most people didn't care.</div>
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"But when they read about Milly Dowler and the McCanns, they were shocked and horrified and that had an effect."</div>
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Also appearing on Thursday was Michelle Stanistreet, the general secretary of the National Union of Journalists, who said journalists should have a "conscience clause" allowing them to refuse something unethical.</div>Ray Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09002489533163106391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1425340590436422922.post-4813137597775959182012-02-07T04:24:00.000-08:002012-02-07T04:24:18.146-08:00Phone hacking: Met police failed to warn victims<br />
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failed to warn victims</h1>
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<a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16922305#story_continues_1" style="color: #4a7194; font-size: 13px; font-weight: bold; left: -5000px; position: absolute; text-decoration: none; top: -5000px;"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px;"><br />The Met Police failed to warn people they were the victims of phone hacking by the News of the World, a judicial review has ruled.</span>Continue reading the main story</a><div class="hyperpuff">
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The Met Commissioner accepted that the failure to warn victims was unlawful.</div>
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Ex-Deputy PM Lord Prescott, Labour MP Chris Bryant, ex-Scotland Yard deputy assistant commissioner Brian Paddick and two others had pushed for a review.</div>
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The men, some of whom received payouts from the newspaper's owner, argued their human rights had been breached.</div>
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Outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, Lord Prescott said he would not be seeking damages from the police.</div>
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He was among dozens of people who received settlements from News International in compensation for hacking.</div>
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He received £40,000, and Mr Bryant was awarded £30,000.</div>
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<span style="color: #505050; font-size: 1.231em; font-weight: bold; line-height: 16px;">Finally apologised'</span></div>
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The long-running case concerned the lawfulness of the original 2006 police investigation into phone hacking, and the failure to notify victims.</div>
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Lord Prescott said: "It's taken me 19 months to finally get justice. Time and again I was told by the Metropolitan Police that I had not been targeted by Rupert Murdoch's News of the World. But I refused to accept this was the case.</div>
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"Thanks to this judicial review, the Metropolitan Police has finally apologised for its failure to properly investigate, and inform victims, of the criminal acts of phone hacking committed by the News of the World."</div>
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The other two applicants in the case were Ben Jackson, the former assistant to the actor Jude Law, and an applicant known only as HJK.</div>
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BBC legal correspondent Clive Coleman said Tuesday's order represents a defeat for the Metropolitan police, and an admission that there were flaws in the initial 2006 investigation in failing to notify potential victims of phone hacking.</div>
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The Met Police are re-examining the entire case dating back to 2006, when the News of the World's former royal editor, Clive Goodman, and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire were jailed for hacking into the mobile phone voicemails of royal aides.</div>
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Since then, a series of inquiries and legal cases have been exploring just how widespread the practice was, and the newspaper was shut by its owner News International.</div>
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Operation Weeting is looking at allegations of hacking by News of the World into private voicemails.</div>
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The ruling comes a day after police confirmed that they believed 829 people were "likely" victims of phone-hacking by newspapers.</div>
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Appearing at the Leveson Inquiry into the culture, practice and ethics of the press, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers said 581 of those people had been contacted.</div>
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However, 231 could not be identified, and 17 had not been told due to "operational reasons".</div>Ray Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09002489533163106391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1425340590436422922.post-42631964726711682912012-02-05T13:22:00.000-08:002012-02-05T13:22:22.002-08:00Police investigating allegations of email hacking at The Times<br />
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The Metropolitan Police are investigating allegations of email hacking at the Times Newspaper, sources have revealed.</h2>
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<img alt="Labour MP Tom Watson and editer of The Times James Harding" height="388" src="http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02116/watson-harding-lev_2116961b.jpg" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; display: block;" width="620" /><div class="artImageExtras" style="font-family: arial; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
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It is understood the investigation relates to claims that a former reporter at the Murdoch owned newspaper hacked into the emails of an anonymous police blogger.</div>
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The police investigation follows a complaint by Labour MP Tom Watson, who wrote to Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers urging Scotland Yard to look into allegations of hacking.</div>
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The Times editor James Harding and News International chief executive Tom Mockridge have both given evidence to the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/leveson-inquiry/" style="color: #234b7b; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Leveson Inquiry</a>acknowledging that a reporter at the newspaper had admitted hacking an email.</div>
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The reporter was later named as 28-year-old Patrick Foster, who accessed the email account of Richard Horton, a police officer who blogged under the name Nightjack.</div>
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Mr Foster was later dismissed from the newspaper for an unrelated matter.</div>
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Mr Horton was outed in 2009 after The Times fought an injunction in the High Court in order to reveal his identity.</div>
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Last week James Harding, editor of The Times wrote to the Leveson Inquiry admitting for the first time that the newspaper had failed to tell the High Court they new about the hacking before challenging the injunction.</div>
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When Mr Harding appeared before the inquiry earlier in January he only admitted that managers knew about an incident of email hacking but did not name Mr Foster or give details of the story.</div>
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Following his evidence The Times published an article admitting that Mr Foster had admitted hacking Mr Horton's email account.</div>
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Mr Watson’s letter to the Metropolitan Police, which was also sent to the Attorney General, said: “It is clear that a crime has been committed – illicit hacking of personal emails.</div>
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“A journalist and unnamed managers failed to report the crime to their proprietor or the police. I must ask that you investigate computer hacking at The Times. In so doing you will also be able to establish whether perjury or conspiracy to pervert the course of justice have also occurred.”</div>
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The Metropolitan Police has set up Operation Tuleta to examine allegations of email hacking by journalists.</div>
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The investigation is separate to Operation Weeting which is looking into allegations of phone hacking</div>
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</div>Ray Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09002489533163106391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1425340590436422922.post-10041523376844943112012-02-03T08:37:00.000-08:002012-02-03T08:37:57.369-08:00Anonymous 'intercept FBI and Scotland Yard phone call'<br />
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Hacking network Anonymous has released a recording of a conference call between the FBI and UK police in which they discuss efforts against hacking.</div>
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The conversation covers the tracking of Anonymous and other splinter groups, dates of planned arrests and details of evidence held by police.</div>
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Anonymous also published an email, apparently from the FBI, showing the email addresses of call participants.</div>
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The FBI confirmed the intercept and said it was hunting those responsible.</div>
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"The information was intended for law enforcement officers only and was illegally obtained. A criminal investigation is under way to identify and hold accountable those responsible," it said in a statement.</div>
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British police at Scotland Yard said they were working on a statement.</div>
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A comment on one of the Twitter accounts linked to Anonymous,AnonymousIRC, said: "The FBI might be curious how we're able to continuously read their internal comms for some time now."</div>
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Correspondents say the release of the phone call and email addresses will be highly embarrassing for the authorities.</div>
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According to the alleged email, the 17-minute phone call took place on 17 January. It was unclear how Anonymous had managed to obtain the recording.</div>
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<span style="font-size: 1.077em;"><br />In the call, British and American voices, said to be those of police and FBI agents, discuss the names of some of the people they were tracking and plans for legal action.</span>The email was sent to law enforcement officials in the US, UK, Sweden, Ireland and other countries, inviting them to "discuss the on-going investigations related to Anonymous, Lulzsec, Antisec, and other associated splinter groups".</div>
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Usernames are included but some of the real names of people being investigated appear to have been bleeped out.</div>
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Among those discussed are two British men, Ryan Cleary and Jake Davis, who are accused of being behind cyber attacks in the US and UK.</div>
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The police also refer to a 15-year-old who is alleged to have been behind a hack of online gaming site Steam, where the identities and credit card details of thousands of users were accessed.</div>
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A Twitter user going by the same name has since posted online he has not yet been arrested.</div>
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One of the British voices on the recording says UK police have made mistakes in previous investigations.</div>
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Anonymous is a loose collective of hackers, anarchists and pranksters who have targeted the websites of a range of governments, companies, law enforcement agencies and individuals in recent years.</div>
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Also on Friday, hackers operating under the Anonymous name took over the website of Greece's justice ministry, prompting officials to take the site down.</div>
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Hackers said the action was a protest against Greece's signing of a global copyright treaty and the government's handling of the economic crisis.</div>
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The website was replaced with a video of a figure wearing the symbolic white mask of Anonymous supporters, saying: "Democracy was given birth in your country but you have killed it."</div>Ray Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09002489533163106391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1425340590436422922.post-72777940810553323532012-01-31T11:04:00.000-08:002012-01-31T11:04:05.000-08:00Leveson Inquiry: state regulation of the press "offensive", says Sir Christopher Meyer<br />
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<br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />Regulation of the press by the state would be a "slippery slope" towards a less liberal society, Sir Christopher Meyer, the former chairman of the Press Complaints Commission, has told the Leveson Inquiry.</h2>
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<span class="caption" style="color: #404040; font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 1.38em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 5px; margin-top: 0px;">Sir Christopher Meyer gives evidence at the Leveson Inquiry</span> </div>
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Sir Christopher, who served as Britain's Ambassador to Washington under Tony Blair, said state regulation of the press would be "offensive to the principle of freedom of expression".</div>
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"Once you allow the state into this area, whatever the best intentions may have been, you are by definition standing on the top of a slippery slope," said Sir Christopher, who also served as a press secretary to John Major.</div>
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"Twenty, twenty-five years later, things change, politics change. It is quite possible a less permissive and liberal state, less conscious of our freedoms, might try to take advantage of that legislation to do things that would be offensive to the principle of freedom of expression," he said.</div>
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In some of the most combative scenes since Lord Justice Leveson began the inquiry in the ethics of the press, Sir Christopher defended the record of the PCC in handling public grievances.</div>
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He defended a 2007 report into phone hacking conducted by the PCC which found there was "no evidence" of widespread voicemail interception beyond Clive Goodman, the jailed Royal reporter, saying it was "widely welcomed" at the time. It was "entirely fanciful" to suggest the PCC should have realised the police had not got to the truth.<br /><br />"I was strongly of the view that it would not have been a useful or possible objective of the PCC to try to duplicate the police inquiry. Two men had gone to jail. An editor had lost its job. That at the time seemed pretty draconian," he said.</div>
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He said the PCC had offered to help Kate and Gerry McCann, the parents of the missing infant who were libelled by the Daily Express, but the couple chose instead to take legal action. He said it could only act if the wronged party asked for help. "There is a time for the courts and there is a time for the PCC instead," Sir Christopher said in his written evidence.</div>
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Sir Christoper grew irate at the suggestion the PCC had failed because some newspapers continue to print misleading stories rather than "analyse the facts."</div>
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He said: "It's like saying to the police, you're a useless organisation because you can't stop crime. Or saying to the bishops, we've still got sin, you'd better go. It's a ridiculous set of arguments."</div>
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He argued the News of the World story about Max Mosley's orgies could have been halted if the F1 tycoon had approached the PCC. The body would have challenged the tabloid as to whether it had a public interest defence, he said. "It is possible had he come to us it is possible the whole thing might have taken a different course. Possible."</div>
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In the most testy exchanges of the morning, Sir Christopher said he had asked the Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas, at a lunch meeting to provide him with the names and newspapers of journalists found to have used a private detective to illegally 'blag' people's private information.</div>
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He said Mr Thomas failed to provide the information or prosecute the journalists.</div>
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"I was repeating the message like a parrot. Where's the beef? If you want me to home in on miscreants, I must have some evidence... He was unwilling to do that."</div>
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"I said, where is the beef Mr Thomas? Give me names! Give me newspapers!"</div>
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"Do you think I would have spent good PCC money to take him to a restaurant in Wellington Street to hear him burbling away? I wanted red meat... I went on and on at him about detail."</div>
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He said the resulting convictions of "one or two" private investigators was "a bit of an anti-climax."</div>
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</div>Ray Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09002489533163106391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1425340590436422922.post-18701025958892461452012-01-30T05:26:00.000-08:002012-01-30T05:26:33.253-08:00Leveson Inquiry: Press Complaints Commission 'not a regulator'<div class="caption body-narrow-width" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #505050; display: inline; float: right; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 16px; margin-right: -160px; margin-top: 0px; position: relative;"><br />
<span style="display: block; width: 304px;"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 1.077em; font-weight: bold; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">Tim Toulmin, who was in the post from 2004 to 2009, said the PCC was set up by the industry as an ombudsman.</div><div style="background-color: white; clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">He said the PCC did not investigate what had happened at the News of the World over phone hacking but instead ran a "forward looking exercise".</div><div style="background-color: white; clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">Mr Toulmin was in the post when Royal editor Clive Goodman was jailed.</div><div style="background-color: white; clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">He was asked if the PCC had discussed whether to ask Andy Coulson questions after he resigned as editor of the News of the World over phone hacking.</div><div style="background-color: white; clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">But he said the PCC had decided its powers would have "held little traction with him".</div><div style="background-color: white; clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">"I later accepted this was a mistake," he said.</div><div style="background-color: white; clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">But he added that this had not been his decision.</div><div style="background-color: white; clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">Lord Justice Leveson said it would have been "extremely powerful" if Mr Coulson had refused to speak to the PCC.</div><div style="background-color: white; clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">Mr Toulmin told the inquiry the PCC could "react quickly to complainants or to events".</div><div style="background-color: white; clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><strong style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 16px;">Editors admonished</strong></div><div style="background-color: white; clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">The PCC members did not regard themselves as defending the press, but helping the public remedy problems they had with free press, he said.</div><div style="background-color: white; clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">The PCC had sent "letters of admonishment" maybe six times to editors if they had been slow to respond to the organisation or had not published a ruling with sufficient prominence.</div><div style="background-color: white; clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">Mr Toulmin said he thought the PCC did "test the boundaries of its powers" with regards examining phone hacking.</div><div style="background-color: white; clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">He said editors on the PPC helped give the PCC power because of peer pressure.</div><div style="background-color: white; clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">Lord Justice Leveson asked if it was an error everyone had made in calling the PCC a self-regulating body when it was not a regulator at all, to which Mr Toulmin replied "yes".</div><div style="background-color: white; clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">The inquiry is also due to hear evidence on Monday from current Press Complaints Commission director Stephen Abell.</div><div style="background-color: white; clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">On Tuesday the witnesses will include Sir Christopher Meyer, a former PCC chairman and former BBC and ITV chairman Michael Grade, who is one of the public members of the PCC.</div><div style="background-color: white; clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">The Leveson Inquiry was set up by Prime Minister David Cameron in July 2011 amid new revelations of phone hacking at the now-defunct News of the World.</div><div style="background-color: white; clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">The first phase is examining the practices and ethics of the press. A second phase of the inquiry, after a police investigation into phone hacking at the News of the World is complete, will focus on unlawful conduct by the press and the police's initial hacking investigation.</div>Ray Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09002489533163106391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1425340590436422922.post-85413626054359348842012-01-26T06:10:00.000-08:002012-01-26T06:10:46.798-08:00Information Commissioner tells Leveson Inquiry: no evidence of phone hacking since 2006<h2>Information Commissioner Christopher Graham tells the Leveson Inquiry he has seen no evidence of breaches of the data protection act by the press since 2006. </h2><br />
<div class="oneHalf gutter"><div class="story"><div id="mainBodyArea"><div class="secondPar">Mr Graham, who took over as Information Commissioner in June 2009, was giving evidence at the <b>Leveson Inquiry</b> into press standards when he said he was not aware any repetition of the breaches of the data protection laws that had been uncovered by Operation Motorman. </div><div class="thirdPar">Operation Motorman was the 2003 investigation by the Information Commissioner's Office into allegations of offences under the Data Protection Act by the British press. </div><div class="fourthPar">The Information Commissioner said he believed his office would have been informed if new breaches had come to light, especially ones covered by Section 55, which refers to illegally obtaining or using an individual's personal information. </div><div class="fifthPar">Mr Graham said: "This is an issue of such high salience, many investigative journalists working in the area, great rivalry between newspaper groups, lots of campaigners, that if there was evidence of further breaches of Section 55 by the press, it would have been drawn to my attention and it hasn't been." </div></div></div></div>Ray Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09002489533163106391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1425340590436422922.post-8304044913019812712012-01-21T14:32:00.001-08:002012-01-21T14:33:05.176-08:00How the hacking saga unfolded<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-16651533#dna-comments"><span class="dna-comment-count-number"></span> <span class="gvl3-icon gvl3-icon-comment"></span></a> <br />
<div class="story-feature related narrow"></div>A fascinating exploration of the anatomy of a parliamentary campaign. I squeezed into the Macmillan Room in Portcullis House on Wednesday night to hear the Parliamentary Affairs Annual Lecture, given by Tom Watson, the Labour former minister, who led the charge on the hacking inquiry on the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee. <br />
All sorts of interesting nuggets emerged, including the revelation that Mr Watson was on the verge of quitting Parliament when the hacking stories began to appear in The Guardian and his select committee decided to revisit its earlier inquiry into media misconduct. He was rather bruised by his interlude as a minister and joined the committee, he said, because he enjoyed films, karaoke and football… but I do find myself doubting if such a hardened politico would have gone through with it and given up Parliament, in the end.<br />
His account of the campaign which followed, to lift the lid on the News of the World's activities, detailed how a group of MPs decided to keep the issue live through constant questions to the prime minister and other ministers, points of order and pointed questioning at committee inquiries. But, most interestingly, he said that use of Freedom of Information requests were now probably a more important tool that parliamentary questions, and he now used them more, because they usually revealed more information than ministers would normally disgorge. <br />
He said that FoI requests for details of the registers of hospitality received by key figures in the Metropolitan Police and Crown Prosecution Service had proved particularly revealing. Perhaps an indicator of where the hacking inquiry will go next?<br />
Mr Watson argued for more powers for select committees to summon witnesses - because where the hearings are likely to be adversarial, witnesses often play hard to get, and the Commons' powers to summon them are obscure and out of date. He also suggested that committees needed the ability to use a barrister to spearhead cross examinations in those circumstances - because most MPs did not have those skills, and their questioning was seldom well-co-ordinated. <br />
And interestingly, he wanted Labour to campaign to beef up the Freedom of Information laws to bring more transparency to the work of government. He argued that this was one way to empower citizens in an age of austerity… and since he is a vice chair of the Labour Party we can assume this is more than just a bit of speculative plugging of a pet cause.<br />
Meanwhile, the CMS Select Committee will meet again next Thursday for its third attempt at finalising its report on the hacking inquiry - it has been taking a while because, I understand, the committee is pretty polarised. <br />
It will have to decide whether it believes it has been lied to by any of the witnesses who gave conflicting accounts of events in News Corp. Shades of expression between "it beggars belief that.." and "we have no reason to accept…" will be scrutinised very closely, when the report finally emerges - which could take quite a while yet.Ray Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09002489533163106391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1425340590436422922.post-1697308553718837512012-01-19T09:01:00.000-08:002012-01-19T09:01:31.247-08:00Phone hacking: Jude Law, Lord Prescott and Sara Payne get payouts<div class="caption body-narrow-width"><img alt="Jude Law" height="225" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/57981000/jpg/_57981244_013750920-1.jpg" width="400" /> </div><div class="caption body-narrow-width"><b><span style="width: 304px;">Law's phone was hacked repeatedly between 2003 and 2006</span></b> </div><div class="story-feature related narrow"></div><div class="introduction" id="story_continues_1">Jude Law and Lord Prescott are among the latest people given payouts over phone hacking by the News of the World.</div>Actor Law received £130,000 ($200,000) and his ex-wife Sadie Frost £50,000. The ex-deputy PM got £40,000, the High Court was told.<br />
Sara Payne, mother of murdered schoolgirl Sarah, and Shaun Russell, whose wife and daughter were murdered in 1996, were given undisclosed sums.<br />
News International apologised in court but said it would not comment further.<br />
As details emerged of the latest 36 cases, lawyers said most people pursuing damages had now settled out of court.<br />
Law's phone was repeatedly hacked between 2003 and 2006. Frost said she had distrusted him because journalists always knew where she would be, the court heard.<br />
<div class="story-feature wide ">A packed court, standing room only, heard 18 statements read out by victims of phone-hacking. Each time the media company admitted its guilt, it offered "its sincerest apologies" and paid up in damages <br />
Actress Sadie Frost, who got £50,000, said journalists always seemed to know where she was. She suspected her husband, actor Jude Law, was leaking information. This was a common theme, highlighting the distrust among friends and families that hacking created.<br />
Another major concern was the breach of security the practice created. Joan Hammell, special adviser to John Prescott, was cleared to the highest security level because she was privy to "highly sensitive information", but was hacked anyway. Damages £40,000<br />
The only hacking victim in court was Chris Bryant MP who stood calmly with his arms crossed as News International apologised. <br />
These cases are the bulk of those outstanding, but 10 cases may still go to trial.</div><div id="story_continues_2">In a statement issued after the hearing, Law said: "I was suspicious about how information concerning my private life was coming out in the press.</div>"I changed my phones, I had my house swept for bugs but still the information kept being published. I started to become distrustful of people close to me."<br />
In total 16 articles were published containing Law's personal information. His personal assistant Ben Jackson was also awarded £40,000, while his public relations consultant Ciara Parkes got £35,000.<br />
The News of the World had placed Mr Prescott under surveillance, the court heard.<br />
The peer told the Hull Daily Mail the settlement "brought clarity, apology and compensation" and followed years of "aggressive denials and a cavalier approach to private information and the law".<br />
Other payouts included an undisclosed sum to footballer Ashley Cole, £40,000 to Welsh rugby union star Gavin Henson (the former partner of singer Charlotte Church) and the same sum to entrepreneur and friend of Princes William and Harry, Guy Pelly.<br />
Mr Pelly said in a statement read in court he had phoned his voicemail to find it engaged.<br />
The judge heard statements on behalf of 18 of the 36. It is expected more will follow at a later date.<br />
No statement was read for Ms Payne, from Surrey, who became a child protection campaigner after her daughter's murder in West Sussex in 2000. Likewise Mr Russell, from Gwynedd, whose wife Lyn and daughter Megan were attacked with a hammer in a Kent country lane.<br />
BBC legal correspondent Clive Coleman said some commentators were viewing the latest settlements as News International "waving the white flag".<br />
<span class="cross-head">'Utmost distress'</span> There did not seem to be a huge appetite on News International's part to put journalists and editors in the witness box, he said.<br />
But he added: "The Metropolitan Police have said there were around 800 victims of phone hacking. Potentially each of those victims has a claim to bring."<br />
<br />
<div class="caption body-narrow-width"><img alt="Lord Prescott" height="225" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/57978000/jpg/_57978263_009783714-1.jpg" width="400" /> </div><div class="caption body-narrow-width"><b><span style="width: 304px;">Lord Prescott had been placed under surveillance by the News of the World</span></b></div><div class="caption body-narrow-width"><b><span style="width: 304px;"> </span></b> </div>Labour MP Chris Bryant, who was awarded £30,000, said in a court statement it was "a matter of utmost distress" to discover he was a victim.<br />
Joan Hammell, chief of staff to Lord Prescott, was awarded £40,000. She was party to highly sensitive information and cleared to the highest security vetting level within government, the court heard.<br />
Christopher Shipman, son of serial killer Dr Harold Shipman, was awarded an undisclosed fee after his e-mails and phone were hacked.<br />
Other payouts confirmed at Thursday's hearing included:<br />
<ul><li> £30,000 to Lisa Gower, who was in a relationship with comedian Steve Coogan</li>
<li> £25,000 to Ashley Cole's solicitor, Graham Shear</li>
<li> £25,000 to freelance crime reporter Tom Rowland</li>
<li> £32,500 to Labour MP Denis McShane</li>
<li> Undisclosed damages to former Labour MP Claire Ward</li>
<li> £27,500 to journalist and author Joan Smith</li>
<li> £60,000 to an anonymous claimant</li>
</ul>Other cases mentioned in court were of the former cavalry officer James Hewitt, who had an affair with Diana, Princess of Wales, ex-MP George Galloway and singer Dannii Minogue.<br />
Settlement figures were not mentioned, nor in the cases of Calum Best, son of George Best, and Meg Matthews, ex-wife of former Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher.<br />
<span class="cross-head">'Extremely brave'</span> Mark Thomson, of Atkins Thomson, told Thursday's hearing other claimants had not settled and would press ahead with a trial scheduled for next month.<br />
"All of the claimants have been extremely brave to take on and succeed against a massive and influential multinational media organisation."<br />
Private detective Glenn Mulcaire, who was jailed in 2007 for illegally accessing voicemails while contracted to the News of the World, was a second defendant in each of the cases.<br />
However, the court heard he was not involved in any of the settlements, nor party to any of the statements, because he has been arrested as part of the Metropolitan Police's phone-hacking investigation.Ray Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09002489533163106391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1425340590436422922.post-20152231111082737052012-01-16T08:38:00.000-08:002012-01-16T08:50:11.216-08:00Leveson Inquiry: Phone hacking 'possibly' behind Sven-Ulrika scoop<div class="videoInStoryC"><div class="emp" id="emp-8167512-9517" style="cursor: pointer; height: 180px; position: relative;"><img height="180" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/56696000/jpg/_56696950_-4.jpg" width="320" /></div></div><br />
<div class="introduction" id="story_continues_1">A hacked voicemail could have been the source of a scoop revealing Sven-Goran Eriksson's affair with Ulrika Jonsson, the Daily Mirror's editor has said.</div>Richard Wallace told a media ethics inquiry that phone hacking "might well have been" taking place when he was showbiz editor under Piers Morgan.<br />
Mr Wallace told the Leveson Inquiry he had no knowledge of hacking but said it might have been hidden from him.<br />
Publisher Trinity Mirror has insisted its journalists work within the law.<br />
Mr Morgan has previously told the inquiry he was "not aware" of phone hacking taking place when he was in charge.<br />
The inquiry, chaired by Lord Justice Leveson at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, is currently looking at the culture, practices and ethics of the press in general.<br />
Mr Wallace said he could not recall the source of the story about former England football manager Eriksson but said he had taken the "tip" - received within the showbiz department - straight to his predecessor as editor.<br />
Mr Morgan had then confirmed it with TV personality Jonsson's agent.<br />
<br />
<div class="caption body-narrow-width"><img alt="Sven-Goran Eriksson and Ulrika Jonsson" height="171" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/57913000/jpg/_57913214_svenulk.jpg" width="304" /> </div><div class="caption body-narrow-width"><span style="width: 304px;">The Mirror had become aware of the affair from a "tip" to the showbiz department, Mr Wallace said</span> </div>Asked if it was possible it could have been obtained through phone hacking, Mr Wallace replied: "It's possible, yes."<br />
Earlier, he had been asked about the evidence of a former financial reporter who spent time in jail for writing about firms whose shares he owned. James Hipwell had suggested phone hacking was a "bog-standard journalistic tool" of the showbiz team when he was at the paper between 1998 and 2000.<br />
Mr Wallace, showbiz editor for part of that time, said he had no knowledge of this but - asked whether it could have been hidden from him - accepted: "It might well have been."<br />
<span class="cross-head">'Human error'</span> Asked about the Daily Mirror's current standards, Mr Wallace said: "Ethical issues are embedded within the culture of our newsroom."<br />
However, he admitted to unintentionally breaking the Press Complaints Commission's editors' code "on <br />
<div class="story-feature narrow"></div><div id="story_continues_2">Mr Wallace was asked about an occasion when the Mirror ran a story based on an incorrect news agency court report alleging that a TV star had been charged with "unspeakable child porn offences".</div>It was, he agreed, a case of mistaken identity of a kind that could have "life-shattering consequences".<br />
But he said: "The reporter made a mistake and no amount of tightening up of rules and regulation can stop human error."<br />
<span class="cross-head">Regret expressed</span> Mr Wallace also used the hearing to apologise to Christopher Jefferies for the Mirror's reporting of his arrest on suspicion of the murder of architect Jo Yeates.<br />
Mr Jefferies, Miss Yeates' former landlord, previously told the inquiry that the national press "shamelessly vilified" him.<br />
"We obviously caused him and his nearest and dearest great distress which I regret, personally, greatly and I regard it as a black mark on my editing record," Mr Wallace said.<br />
<div class="videoInStoryC"><div class="emp" id="emp-16579561-9518" style="cursor: pointer; height: 180px; position: relative;"><img height="180" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/57912000/jpg/_57912794_jex_1290789_de27-1.jpg" width="320" /></div><div class="caption">Mr Wallace said that hacking could have been the source of the Ulrika Jonsson story</div></div>Later, Sunday Mirror editor Tina Weaver was asked about allegations of phone hacking at her paper made by the BBC's Newsnight programme.<br />
"I don't believe it to be true," she said, adding that the claims had not been fully investigated and she had not complained to the BBC.<br />
"I think they know we're unhappy about unsubstantiated non-specific anonymous allegations from seven years ago presented as unearthing evidence," she said.<br />
Lloyd Embley, editor of the People, said he did not believe hacking had taken place at the paper.<br />
Trinity Mirror chief executive Sly Bailey is currently giving evidence.<br />
Prime Minister David Cameron set up the inquiry last July in response to revelations that the News of the World commissioned a private detective to hack murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler's phone after she disappeared in 2002.<br />
It is due to report on media ethics and cultures by September. The inquiry's second stage will examine the extent of unlawful activities by journalists, once detectives have completed their investigation into alleged phone hacking and corrupt payments to police, and any prosecutions have been concluded.Ray Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09002489533163106391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1425340590436422922.post-36620646301810376532012-01-15T07:43:00.000-08:002012-01-15T07:43:46.006-08:00Leveson Inquiry: Anonymous evidence ruling challenged<div class="caption body-narrow-width"><img alt="Lord Justice Leveson" height="225" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/57767000/jpg/_57767851_012548453-1.jpg" width="400" /> </div><div class="caption body-narrow-width"><b><span style="width: 304px;">The first phase of Lord Justice Leveson's inquiry is looking at media 'culture, practices and ethics'</span></b> </div><div class="embedded-hyper"></div><div class="introduction" id="story_continues_1">The publisher of the Daily Mail has asked senior judges to consider whether an inquiry into press standards should hear evidence anonymously.</div>Associated Newspapers said it feared its reputation could be tarred by evidence given anonymously.<br />
The Leveson Inquiry has agreed in principle to hear from journalists who said they feared for their jobs if they were to be named. <br />
The inquiry is looking into the ethics, culture and practice of the press.<br />
Lawyers representing Associated Newspapers, which also publishes the Mail on Sunday, challenged a ruling on the admissibility of anonymous evidence at London's High Court before Lord Justice Toulson, Mr Justice Sweeney and Mrs Justice Sharp.<br />
Mark Warby QC, for Associated Newspapers, told the three judges the inquiry had to be fair, both procedurally and "in respect of the reputation" of Associated Newspapers.<br />
He said the press was "on trial" and he questioned whether it would be fair to allow anonymous evidence which could not be fully tested or challenged.<br />
"The concern is about untested evidence that will tend to tar Associated Newspapers with a broad brush," he said.<br />
In written statements, Mr Warby said the company was not suggesting the inquiry should never grant anonymity to a witness.<br />
"The claimant objects to the decision in principle that certain witnesses should be anonymous because they fear damage to their careers if they are named."<br />
Robert Jay QC, for inquiry chairman Lord Justice Leveson, said the application for a judicial review was "premature" as the chairman had only agreed in principle to receive anonymous evidence.<br />
"The chairman has not determined whether such evidence should be received in any individual case: indeed, he has made it plain that before making such a determination the application would need to be accorded anxious scrutiny," he said in written arguments.<br />
The judges said their decision would be announced on a date to be fixed.<br />
<span class="cross-head">'Not consistent'</span> In a ruling on 9 November, Lord Justice Leveson said he would be "prepared to receive anonymous evidence".<br />
He said the inquiry had been approached by a number of individuals, "all of whom describe themselves as journalists working for a newspaper or newspapers", who had asked to provide evidence anonymously and not to be identified to the newspaper or newspapers for which they work or had worked.<br />
Lord Justice Leveson said the journalists feared for their jobs if what they said was attributed to them.<br />
"It is clear that the picture which they wish to paint is not entirely consistent with the picture that editors and proprietors have painted of their papers and they fear for their employment if what they say can be attributed to them," he said.<br />
The inquiry, at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, has heard from several newspaper editors and executives this week.<br />
Next week, it will hear from Private Eye editor Ian Hislop, the Guardian's Alan Rusbridger, Times editor James Harding and Richard Wallace, of the Daily Mirror.<br />
Tom Mockridge, who took over from Rebekah Brooks as chief executive of News International last July, and Trinity Mirror chief executive Sly Bailey will also appear.<br />
The Leveson Inquiry was set up by Prime Minister David Cameron in July 2011 amid new revelations of phone hacking at the now-defunct News of the World.<br />
A second phase of the inquiry, after a police investigation into phone hacking at the News of the World is complete, will focus on unlawful conduct by the press and the police's initial hacking investigation.Ray Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09002489533163106391noreply@blogger.com0