Rebekah Brooks in firing line as phone-hacking scandal refuses to go away

Instead of drawing a line under the crisis, News International's dramatic apology has turned the spotlight on the chief executive



According to the Hollywood rumour mill, Hugh Grant was originally front-runner for the role of George VI in The King's Speech, the film that recently won Colin Firth an Oscar. While Grant may rue the missed opportunity, perhaps he should think of putting his name forward for a different gong – Fleet Street's scoop of the year.

In this week's New Statesman, Grant revealed how he had bugged Paul McMullan, a former News of the World journalist who lifted the lid on near epidemic levels of phone hacking at Rupert Murdoch's newspaper while it was under the editorship of Andy Coulson, David Cameron's former spin doctor.

But it was McMullan's asides about Rebekah Brooks, one of the most powerful people in the UK media landscape, that provided Grant's article with its juiciest vignettes. The surprisingly guileless McMullan – that unaware he was being recorded by the Four Weddings star – painted a picture of the chief executive of News International, owner of the NoW, as a kingmaker to whom Cameron owed much of his success.

Cameron and Brooks have homes near to each other in the Cotswolds and, according to McMullan, go horse riding together. "They're all mates together," McMullan explained. "Cameron is very much in debt to Rebekah … for helping him not quite win the election."

But the relationship between the prime minister and Murdoch's most loyal lieutenant will be sorely tested now. News International's humiliating mea culpa on phone hacking has again placed Brooks firmly in her enemies' cross hairs. The company announced it was preparing to pay compensation, predicted to run into tens of millions of pounds, after admitting liability for intercepting the telephone messages of a number of public figures, including the actress Sienna Miller, the sports agent Sky Andrew and the former Sky presenter Andy Gray. The company also confirmed it was offering compensation to the Labour MP Tessa Jowell, the former culture secretary who took crucial, and potentially market-sensitive, decisions that could have had an impact on Murdoch's business interests.

The offer may not be sufficient. Miller's solicitor, Mark Thomson, of Atkins Thomson, told the Observer: "Sienna's claims are based on outrageous violations of her privacy; her voicemails were persistently hacked and the information obtained was used to publish numerous intrusive articles over a period of a year. Her primary concern is to discover the whole truth and for all those responsible to be held to account."

Today the newspaper printed an apology stating: "Here today, we publicly and unreservedly apologise to all such individuals. What happened to them should not have happened. It was and remains unacceptable." The tone of the apology was in marked contrast to the bombast displayed by Brooks in the past. Declining to appear before parliament's culture select committee when it was examining phone-hacking allegations at the NoW, Brooks, the paper's editor between 2000 and 2003, was almost contemptuous of suggestions that the practice was widespread. Brooks and several fellow senior executives said that they had brought in two outside law firms to investigate the allegations, and both had found nothing untoward. But this line was demolished as a string of celebrities sued, alleging reporters had repeatedly hacked their phone messages. As information held by the Metropolitan police was disclosed to their legal teams, it quickly became clear that the practice of phone hacking extended beyond one rogue reporter, as the NoW had maintained.

The arrests of the paper's chief reporter, Neville Thurlbeck, 50, and its former head of news, Ian Edmondson, 42, in connection with the affair appeared to reinforce the suspicions. Legal sources told the Observer that they expected two more journalists who had worked for the paper would be arrested soon. That would be a further headache for James Murdoch, Rupert's son, recently promoted to third in command at News International's parent company, News Corporation, who felt confident enough to declare: "What we were able to do is really put this problem into a box. If you get everybody sucked into something like that, then the whole business will sputter, which you don't want."

But how "sucked-in" is Brooks? Significantly, News International said that the compensation would apply to allegations of voicemail hacking only between 2004 and 2006 – during the time that the paper was edited by Coulson. But the Labour MP Chris Bryant, who has issued proceedings against the NoW, said that not only did he believe that his phone had been hacked in 2003, but he knew of others who claimed that their phones had been hacked in 2002. "News International are trying to limit their liability in as many ways as possible, and they are trying to protect senior people," he said.

The former independent MP George Galloway also said that he believed phone hacking had taken place at the newspaper prior to Coulson's editorship. Significantly the NoW's apology acknowledged: "It is now apparent that our previous inquiries failed to uncover important evidence and we acknowledge our actions then were not sufficiently robust."

In July 2009, Colin Myler, the paper's editor, appeared before the culture select committee to declare there was "no evidence" phone hacking went beyond that by its royal editor, Clive Goodman, who was jailed in 2007. Brooks's enemies – many of them politically motivated, given the huge influence her newspapers wield – contend that, as chief executive of News International since September 2009, she should have been more active in investigating the allegations. Crucially, however, she has the support of Murdoch senior, and there has been no evidence to show that she was aware phone hacking was taking place. A more immediate problem is the deadline given to her by Keith Vaz, MP, who chairs the home affairs select committee, to elaborate on an admission that she made to parliament that the Sun, which she edited between 2003 and 2009, had paid police officers for information. The admission has fuelled claims that Scotland Yard failed to thoroughly investigate the scandal in its initial inquiry because of the close relationship between some senior officers and the newspaper.

Attention is now switching from the activities of Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator jailed along with Goodman, to one of his rivals, Jonathan Rees. Rees, who had a £150,000-a-year contract with the NoW stretching from when it was edited by Brooks, was acquitted at the Old Bailey of conspiring to murder his former business partner, Daniel Morgan, in one of London's most notorious unsolved murders.

Sid Fillery, a former Met detective who worked with Rees and had a close relationship with the NoW, was also cleared in connection with the case, having been charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice. Fillery led the original investigation into the Morgan murder. In a dramatic twist, lawyers suing the NoW now want to know whether, as part of their investigation into Rees, the Met obtained information that may help their clients. Gerald Shamash, a solicitor who is acting for Alastair Campbell, said that he had asked the Met to examine its files. "I have been pointed in the direction by others who suggest we need to find out from the material taken from Jonathan Rees whether Alastair Campbell's phone, or other material belonging to him, was intercepted or taken during the time he was at No 10," Shamash said.

Paul Farrelly, a Labour MP and member of the culture select committee that investigated the phone-hacking claims, said that it would issue a new report after Easter, given its unresolved concerns about the scandal. "It's inevitable we will want to delve into the inadequacies of the initial police inquiry, the contradictory stances between the Met and the Crown Prosecution Service, and the fact that all those people from the NoW who came to talk to us appear to have been mistaken in their understanding of events," said Farrelly who suggested that Myler's position as editor of the paper was "untenable".

News International's ability to contain the story is hampered because it does not know what else is coming down the tracks. The former Met commissioner and London mayoral candidate, Brian Paddick, who believes that his own phone was hacked, said that the company was apologising only in cases where it had been caught red-handed. "These are people who have issued proceedings, they've got the courts to force News International to hand over evidence," Paddick said.

Shamash said: "There is material that I have seen, which the paper hasn't seen, but when they do, their position will change dramatically. And this is true for others bringing claims."

It may be some time before Brooks is seen riding out with Cameron.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/ap ... ernational

*Goes off to try and find the Hugh Grant quotes*

The Hollywood star, the tabloid executive, the guest editor and the PM

In his illustrious on-screen career as the archetypal bumbling Englishman, Hugh Grant has achieved stardom as a cuddly klutz. Now a new, darker side to the Oxford-educated thespian can be revealed – that of the calculating mastermind of the sort of tabloid sting which has earned him some of his less flattering headlines.

The actor yesterday revealed the fruits of an extraordinary and unorthodox interview he conducted in a Kent pub with its owner Paul McMullan, a former News of the World executive who had previously admitted to hacking mobile phone messages before it became illegal, using a concealed tape recorder. Or, as Mr Grant succinctly put it, "the bugger bugged".

The result was a list of colourful and unsubstantiated allegations covering areas from whether Rebekah Brooks, the former NOTW editor and now chief executive of News International, knew about phone-hacking at the Sunday paper to the suggestion that a well-known television actress had an early career as a prostitute. News International said last night that it "totally refutes" the claims against Ms Brooks.

The interview, excerpts from which were published in this week's edition of The New Statesman, guest edited by Mr Grant's former girlfriend Jemima Khan, was an example of revenge being a dish best served in cold black and white print after Mr McMullan happened to pull up behind the actor's broken-down car earlier last year and offered the stranded actor a lift. The landlord then sold pictures and his account of the incident to the Mail on Sunday for £3,000.

As part of a meditation on freedom of information and privacy, the Hollywood actor made good on a pledge to drop in at his saviour's Dover pub for a friendly pint and a chat. The encounter was given added piquancy by the fact Mr McMullan has stated that phone-hacking was "pretty widespread" at the NOTW and suggested that its targets might have included Mr Grant. The actor, whose entanglement with prostitute Divine Brown provided the nadir of an often fractious relationship with the British press, extracted from Mr McMullan an allegation that Ms Brooks "absolutely" knew about the practice, allegations about which this week led to the arrest of the paper's chief reporter and a former senior executive. The former NOTW executive added that during the 1990s, newspapers had widely used scanners, costing as little as £60, to record conversations, including those of Princess Diana. Mr McMullan, who has previously claimed that former No 10 spokesman Andy Coulson was aware of hacking during his tenure as NOTW editor, then went on to muse about a claimed equestrian link between David Cameron and Ms Brooks, whose relationship fell under scrutiny earlier this year when it emerged that the Prime Minister and his wife had attended a social engagement at the media executive's Oxfordshire home before Christmas.

The ex-journalist, unaware he was being taped, said: "Cameron went horse-riding regularly with Rebekah. I know, because as well as doorstepping celebrities, I've also doorstepped my ex-boss by hiding in the bushes, waiting for her to come past with Cameron on horse... before the election to show that – you know – Murdoch was backing Cameron."

Mr Grant noted that "absurdly I felt a bit guilty for recording [Mr McMullan]". For his part, his target recognised the tables had been turned. Mr McMullan said: "I asked [Mr Grant] jokingly if he was taping our conversation. When I heard about the article, my response was a big fat 'oops'."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/cr ... 65007.html

And here's the Daily Mail coverage:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/ar ... ds-newsxml

You could be right. She has been rather silent for a few years. Last good film she did was Austin Powers.

I do hope that she drags them all the way to the supreme court and that News International are bankrupted by legal fees and settlements.

It just gets better...

Phone hacking: Rupert Murdoch 'urged Gordon Brown' to halt Labour attacks

Rupert Murdoch used his political influence and contacts at the highest levels to try to get Labour MPs and peers to back away from investigations into phone hacking at the News of the World, a former minister in Gordon Brown's government has told the Observer.

The ex-minister, who does not want to be named, says he is aware of evidence that Murdoch, the chairman of News Corporation, relayed messages to Brown last year via a third party, urging him to help take the political heat out of the row, which he felt was in danger of damaging his company.

Brown, who stepped down as prime minister after last May's general election defeat for Labour, has refused to comment on the claim, but has not denied it. It is believed that contacts were made before he left No 10. The minister said: "What I know is that Murdoch got in touch with a good friend who then got in touch with Brown. The intention was to get him to cool things down. That is what I was told."

Brown, who became increasingly concerned at allegations of phone hacking and asked the police to investigate, had claimed that he was a victim of hacking when chancellor. He made Murdoch's views known to a select few in the Labour party.

In January, it was revealed Brown had written at least one letter to the Metropolitan police over concerns that his phone was targeted when he was still at the Treasury.

Suggestions that Murdoch involved Tony Blair in a chain of phone calls that led to Brown have been denied by the former prime minister. A spokesman for Blair said the claim was "categorically untrue", adding "no such calls ever took place". The allegation will, however, add to concerns about the influence Murdoch wielded over key political figures at Westminster and in Downing Street.

It will also raise further questions over the decision by David Cameron to appoint Andy Coulson, a former NoW editor who resigned over phone hacking, as his director of communications.

A spokesman for News International, the paper's owner, rebuted the claim, saying: "This is total rubbish."

Labour leader Ed Miliband weighed in on the hacking scandal , saying it was important to establish who knew what about "criminal behaviour" – and when. "What we have seen is a serious admission of wrongdoing by News International," he said during a visit to Swindon. "We have now got to get to the bottom of any criminal behaviour, which is a matter for the police. We need to know who knew about these actions and when. We also need to know how far across the organisation knowledge of these actions went."

On Friday, News International issued a public apology to eight victims of phone hacking, including the actress Sienna Miller and Tessa Jowell, the former culture secretary in Tony Blair's government. It was the first time the company had admitted the practice was common at the News of the World.

However, questions remain over whether the victims will settle. Miller's solicitor, Mark Thomson, of law firm Atkins Thomson, said: "She is awaiting information and disclosure from the News of the World which has been ordered by the court and will consider her next steps once this is provided."

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport said a decision on the planned takeover of BSkyB by News Corp would not be influenced by the controversy. A spokesman said: "The culture secretary has to make a quasi-judicial decision about the impact of the proposed merger on media plurality issues alone. Legally the culture secretary cannot consider other factors as part of this process and under law phone hacking is not seen as relevant to media plurality."

The scandal has focused attention on senior executives at News International, including its chief executive Rebekah Brooks, formerly Wade. Former MP George Galloway, who said he had been shown proof his phone had been hacked, claimed the NoW's apology was a "cynical attempt to protect the company's chief executive Rebekah Wade … Wade delivered the statement on Friday which sought to put an end to the controversy. However, by attempting to limit the admission of liability to the two years between 2004 and 2006 – and by so doing effectively sacrificing two senior executives and former editor Andy Coulson – she appears to be trying to exculpate herself from the scandal."

The publicist Max Clifford, who brought a private case against NoW that ended with a reported £1m settlement, said the newspaper had been forced into the apology. "It's now acknowledged this was widespread at News International."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/apr/0 ... rdon-brown

I'm in total shock...

It should be considered. If the Mafia wanted to buy an importer should it be allowed? If a corrupt abusive medi aorganisation waned to buy another media outlet should it be allowed to do the same in the new company? I would have thought that until James Murdoch and Rebecca Brooks have been cleared in the criminal courts this bid should be put on hold.

News of the World: four phone hacking test cases approved

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13096021


No wonder she turned it down. It was an insulting offer considering what they had done.

I would think that secretly recording a conversation you are having with another is a bit different to bugging a conversation between two unknowing people.

Very true, plus the old hidden recorder in a hotel room has been used for years. Does anyone remember the MP's who were making ridiculous claims to prospective clients who want questions asked in parliament? No need to hack anything there. If they say something stupid on tape then they deserve what they get.