Missing Milly Dowler's voicemail "hacked by News of the World"

[butchersapron]

Mulcaire is arrested again.

 

[Badgers]

Muclaire is arrested.

 

[DaveCinzano]

And Coulson is suing News International subsidiary over his legal fees.

 

[shagnasty]

Though it's not on the front pages it still has legs

 

[shagnasty]

And Coulson is suing News International subsidiary over his legal fees.

Legal fees can soon mount up

 

[newbie]

This has the makings of being the crucial battle. Coulson argues that he was doing his job. NI says his job didn't involve criminal acts.

If NI dig in Coulson will have to go for the jugular. If they cave in they accept corporate responsibility and bye bye Murdoch.

 

[laptop]

In the midst of creating a Euro-crisis, at 6pm on Friday, Cameron slips out that oops, he forgot, he had more meetings with Murdoch...

 

[London_Calling]

Widely reported that Blunkett took the Murdoch bribe earlier this year rather than stand up and be counted at a time when it mattered - New Labour to his core:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/uk..._RB2SPCZ1VErnOK8w?docId=N0383991323558593961A

 

[butchersapron]

Odd that there's been so little comment on this correction added to the Guardian's original story on this two days ago:

"Evidence secured by the police following the publication of this article has established that the News of the World was not responsible for the deletion of voicemails which caused Milly Dowler's parents to have false hope that she was alive."

So who did delete those specific messages? The Police?

 

[Maurice Picarda]

Stephen Glover gave it a good gloat in the I today, as did Paul Waugh in the Politics Home email. But "Guardian gets facts wrong" is an inside baseball story; doesn't have real legs.

 

[butchersapron]

Nick Davies seems to be getting these things wrong quite often - wasn't he responsible for the Brown's child being targeted story as well?

 

[London_Calling]

So who did delete those specific messages? The Police?

To be specific:

Evidence retrieved from Surrey police logs shows that this "false hope" moment occurred on the evening of Sunday 24 March 2002. It is not clear what caused this deletion. Phone company logs show that Milly last accessed her voicemail on Wednesday 20 March, so the deletion on Sunday cannot have been the knock-on effect of Milly listening to her messages. Furthermore, the deletion removed every single message from her phone. But police believe it cannot have been caused by the News of the World, which had not yet instructed private detective Glenn Mulcaire to hack Milly's phone. Police are continuing to try to solve the mystery.

Every message was deleted....

Two things struck me (a) that's not the MO of any of the known appalling leeches, and (b) it would be consistent with Milly Dowler's killer covering his tracks (say, if she was alive in the boot of a car or the back of a van, and had potentially used her phone in that period). I suppose, it could also have been incompetence by the police, though they would have gone via the phone company itself.

 

[butchersapron]

I'd urge people to read that whole original article again with this 'correction' in mind - the definitive claims built out of suspicions, the word 'targeted' to imply 'actually did it' and so on...

 

[London_Calling]

tbf to Nick Davies, even McMullen thought it was Mulcaire or one of the other bods, and he was working on the Features Desk at the time.

It's fascinating that that moment - the false hope/Dowler family kitchen table moment - was the tippng point for public sentiment and for everything that has since happened (literally, see this thread title and the posts that follow), and it was all predicated on the apparently false belief of who was responsible.

But for that, I suppose we have to think Murdoch would almost have BSkyB now and the political world would be very different ......jesus: Hoist by his own petard. Totally Shakesperian.

 

[agricola]

tbf to Nick Davies, even McMullen thought it was Mulcaire or one of the other bods, and he was working on the Features Desk at the time.

It's fascinating that that moment - the false hope/Dowler family kitchen table moment - was the tippng point for public sentiment and for everything that has since happened (literally, see this thread title and the posts that follow), and it was all predicated on the apparently false belief of who was responsible.

This, plus of course their actions since clearly seem to indicate that they (or at least those at the top) thought that their staff had deleted these messages as well.

Meanwhile, Neville Thurlbeck is doing his best "we did nothing wrong" impression. (edit) Which is shortly followed by him refusing to answer questions.



edit 2: Thurlbeck's refusal to answer questions was in relation to questions about this

 

[butchersapron]

Nice glimpse into the 30s from Neville Thurlbeck. (He's got his back covered here - got them pocketed)

 

[frogwoman]

so it wasn't hacked by the news of the world after all? wtf?

 

[agricola]

so it wasn't hacked by the news of the world after all? wtf?

It was hacked - they admit doing it - but the voicemail messages may not have been deleted by them, though of course ex-NOTW and the rest of the guilty men insist that this change means that they were innocent, it was a fit-up job by the Guardian etc etc

 

[butchersapron]

They can all they like,won't wash now - too late. Who did deleted them - who else has access and how? And how shit is the guardians investigative team on responsibility.

 

[agricola]

And how shit is the guardians investigative team on responsibility.

From their own article on today's events, it appears that they just reported what their source in Weeting told them, without checking it beyond talking to Mark Lewis and/or the Dowlers... though as I said above, the response of NI strongly suggests that even they thought they had actually done it.

 

[butchersapron]

From their own article on today's events, it appears that they just reported what their source in Weeting told them, without checking it beyond talking to Mark Lewis and/or the Dowlers... though as I said above, the response of NI strongly suggests that even they thought they had actually done it.

So unacceptably shit is the answer.

 

[agricola]

So unacceptably shit is the answer.

More greedy than shit, and given that Nick Davies in particular had banged on about press malpractice for years without anyone giving two hoots you can perhaps forgive them for biting on this. In any case, the story was still largely correct - the NOTW did after all listen to the voicemail message.

 

[butchersapron]

More greedy than shit, and given that Nick Davies in particular had banged on about press malpractice for years without anyone giving two hoots you can perhaps forgive them for biting on this. In any case, the story was still largely correct - the NOTW did after all listen to the voicemail message.

The story was that they deleted them.

- the hacked bit...well who knows now after re-reading the original post.

This is what is said:

In the last four weeks the Met officers have approached Surrey police and taken formal statements from some of those involved in the original inquiry, who were concerned about how News of the World journalists intercepted – and deleted – the voicemail messages of Milly Dowler.

The messages were deleted by journalists in the first few days after Milly's disappearance in order to free up space for more messages. As a result friends and relatives of Milly concluded wrongly that she might still be alive. Police feared evidence may have been destroyed.

 

[Santino]

I read - can't remember where - that the phone might have been set to automatically delete messages a certain time after they had been opened. Has that been discussed?

 

[butchersapron]

I read - can't remember where - that the phone might have been set to automatically delete messages a certain time after they had been opened. Has that been discussed?

So who opened them?

 

[Santino]

NOTW, I presume.

But I sort of feel I've lost the thread at this stage.

 

[agricola]

So who opened them?

The NOTW, another paper, Surrey Police, the phone company or even Levi Bellfield. We know that the NOTW at least listened to them, and IIRC even published stories based on the content of those messages.

 

[Lock&Light]

I read - can't remember where - that the phone might have been set to automatically delete messages a certain time after they had been opened. Has that been discussed?

Yes. There were messages on the phone which would not yet have been deleted (at the time Mrs. Dowler thought that her daughter could still be alive) if the automatic deletion system had come into play.

 

[butchersapron]

The NOTW, another paper, Surrey Police, the phone company or even Levi Bellfield. We know that the NOTW at least listened to them, and IIRC even published stories based on the content of those messages.

Who had the brains and opp = NOTW, Cops

 

[agricola]

Who had the brains and opp = NOTW, Cops

Surrey Police at least had a legitimate reason to monitor those messages.