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

[marty21]

amazing really that Coulson and Brooks both had no idea that this was going on

must be an easy job - just let the staff get on with it


what could possibly go wrong?

 

[Fingers]

Not really - given the nature of the case against Bellfield, anything that would affect the timeline of Milly's disappearance might be of relevance to any defence, especially if it wasnt disclosed to them.

They should have had him on the unrelated charge of attempted kidnap as well but I believe they discharged the jury on that one. I doubt the CPS saw this coming though. I am surprised this has taken so long to come out but the cynic in me might think it has a lot to do with the forthcoming takeover decision

 

[Santino]

Staff appraisals must have been awkward.

'How do you feel you've performed this year?'

'Fantastically.'

'Well, I'll just have to take your word for it, I'm not involved in the actual day-to-day running of things. See you next year!'

 

[agricola]

Brooks' email to her staff last this morning

That version of events fails utterly - the NOTW had a report on the 14th of April 2002 that could only have come from listening to Milly's voice messages, and they (the NOTW) reported it to Surrey Police.

 

[SpookyFrank]

So this could render Bellfield's trial a mistrial so the Dowlers may have to go through it all again. This is pure mentalness. Someone needs to do some serious bird for this.

I wouldn't have thought so tbh. It was the police investigation which the NOTW was fucking about with, not Bellfield's trial.

 

[agricola]

Robert Peston on Twitter:

News Int execs tell me they fear there may have been worse examples of NOTW hacking than that of Milly Dowler's phone. The mind reels

IIRC an issue of Private Eye from a year or two ago had a story that NOTW (or possibly Sun or Mail) journos had screwed the family of a recently deceased serviceman out of thousands of pounds, I will try and find it after work.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Maddy!

She didn't have a phone.

 

[marty21]

Staff appraisals must have been awkward.

'How do you feel you've performed this year?'

'Fantastically.'

'Well, I'll just have to take your word for it, I'm not involved in the actual day-to-day running of things. See you next year!'

that does sound like a good place to work

 

[Barking_Mad]

It's the story that just keeps on giving. I too get the sense that we've not reached the bottom of the barrel.

We should run a book on which high profile stories from the past were phone hacked....

Maddy gets my vote.

 

[Ivana Nap]

It was reported a while ago that they may have hacked the Soham parents phones
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...s-hacked-mp-makes-shocking-claim-2252466.html

 

[killer b]

It was reported a while ago that they may have hacked the Soham parents phones
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...s-hacked-mp-makes-shocking-claim-2252466.html

was that something to do with tom watson?

 

[agricola]

It's the story that just keeps on giving. I too get the sense that we've not reached the bottom of the barrel.

We should run a book on which high profile stories from the past were phone hacked....

Maddy gets my vote.

"All of the above" gets mine.

 

[agricola]

was that something to do with tom watson?

not the Newsnight thing again, please.

 

[gabi]

amusingly its still not even made the NOTW news site and is still totally buried on the Sun and Mail..

whereas everywhere else in the world its topping the news agenda... lol

 

[killer b]

it was on the front page of the mail... i don't think that counts as 'buried' does it?

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

Robert Peston on Twitter:

News Int execs tell me they fear there may have been worse examples of NOTW hacking than that of Milly Dowler's phone. The mind reels

If they were hacking MD's phone all those years ago it is reasonable to assume that ANYONE in the news in the last 10 years has been "fair game". Yes, that would include Maddy.

 

[gabi]

it was on the front page of the mail... i don't think that counts as 'buried' does it?

true, my mistake

 

[paolo]

Times has it as second story on front page, and pretty much all of Page 3, including a timeline of events in NI hacking.

The Sun's burial of it is even worse than I expected. It's a *tiny* story on page 2. Thick as theives.

 

[dylans]

Dennis Potter's last interview. Murdoch is cancer

 

[stethoscope]

Nerver mind what News International might have done, let's try and make this all about the BBC

"What is the BBC really trying to do with its Milly Dowler coverage?"
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/d...-trying-to-do-with-its-milly-dowler-coverage/

The Corporation is bitterly opposed to News Corporation’s bid to to buy the 61% of BSkyB it doesn’t already own (as is much of Fleet Street). Indeed, it is so opposed that the BBC’s director general Mark Thompson took the extraordinary step last autumn of putting his name to a letter of protest objecting to the deal – for which he was forced to apologise by the BBC Trust. The BBC’s treatment of the hacking story suggests the Corporation still sees the value of blackening the reputation of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire as thoroughly as possible whenever the opportunity arises.

 

[ymu]

If it can be proved that the hacking of Milly Dowler's mobile actually impeded the police investigation, then it's a very serious criminal matter and needs to be dealt with severely.

The police knew about it at the time. Rather more interesting is why they swept it under the carpet at the time. Like they have done all the way through this phone-hacking saga. The police are 100% complicit in this. It's unravelling in part because they made such a pathetically non-serious attempt to investigate it before.

The Met and NI have their skeletons in the same closet.

 

[scalyboy]

The police knew about it at the time. Rather more interesting is why they swept it under the carpet at the time. Like they have done all the way through this phone-hacking saga. The police are 100% complicit in this. It's unravelling in part because they made such a pathetically non-serious attempt to investigate it before.

The Met and NI have their skeletons in the same closet.

Did anyone listen to Hugh Grant this morning on the radio (R5 live)? He was strongly anti-News Corporation and Murdoch (using the word "evil" a couple of times). I wasn't listening with undivided attention but am fairly sure he alleged that police had been paid off, either whilst the phone-hacking was going on, or afterwards.
(apols if this has been already covered upthread)

 

[Treacle Toes]

We are not really shocked though are we?

 

[London_Calling]

I haven't been following that closely - from where did this particular story originate?

 

[Descartes]

The horrid squalid tart, Rebekah Brooks is wriggling like a worm on a hook.
How does an editor accept a story without asking the basic fundamental question of any journalist, "Where did you get this story?"

Opening in the High Court today is a Contempt of Court action against both the Sun and The Mirror, the request, if gound guilty is for a penalty of committal or similar.

Should the action be successful, we can only hope it set's a precedence.

 

[Treacle Toes]

Wasn't a previous Editor sacked for this crap...I know she isn't editor now but...

 

[ymu]

Did anyone listen to Hugh Grant this morning on the radio (R5 live)? He was strongly anti-News Corporation and Murdoch (using the word "evil" a couple of times). I wasn't listening with undivided attention but am fairly sure he alleged that police had been paid off, either whilst the phone-hacking was going on, or afterwards.
(apols if this has been already covered upthread)

I doubt they needed paying off. Their officers are complicit in providing information to the hackers, and the Met uses Murdoch to run any story they find convenient. The Guardian had a piece a while ago about one of the original investigators on the original phone-hacking scandal being warned off it by the PR dept. Impossible to find right now ... but it was a year or so ago I think, when the story blew up again.

 

[Divisive Cotton]

tweet from r preston:

News Int execs tell me they fear there may have been worse examples of NOTW hacking than that of Milly Dowler's phone. The mind reels

 

[London_Calling]

Has to be talking about Soham-related stuff, surely.

 

[Lord Camomile]

Did anyone listen to Hugh Grant this morning on the radio (R5 live)? He was strongly anti-News Corporation and Murdoch (using the word "evil" a couple of times). I wasn't listening with undivided attention but am fairly sure he alleged that police had been paid off, either whilst the phone-hacking was going on, or afterwards.
(apols if this has been already covered upthread)

Linked to further up the thread, but this is a direct link to the interview mp3.

I was listening while working, but I thought I heard him say something like that too.