News of the World Phone Hacking Case

Former British tabloid editor Rebekah Brooks was cleared in a London court on Tuesday June 24,2014 of all charges related to a phone-hacking case that raised serious questions about the news-gathering conduct of journalists working for the media empire of Rupert Murdoch.

Andy Coulson, her former colleague and an former tabloid editor himself, was found guilty of one charge of conspiring to hack phones. Coulson was previously British Prime Minister David Cameron's communications chief.

Both had denied any involvement in taking part or authorizing phone hacking — an illegal activity that involves listening in on voice mails — while working at the Murdoch-owned News of the World and Sun tabloids.

Dozens of journalists and officials have been arrested and questioned as part of the probe, and the trial has been going on since Oct 2013

The prosecution and defense both accepted that phones were hacked on a large scale and News U.K., the publisher of the-now disbanded News of the World, admitted that wrongdoing had occurred and has been paying victims compensation



Andy Coulson and 5 others are facing prison for their roles in what prosecutors called a ‘pervasive’ culture of phone hacking at the News of the World.They each face a maximum sentence of two years for the phone hacking. 

Under  Andy Coulson’s editorship, the phone messages of actors, celebrities, and politicians were intercepted on ‘an industrial scale’. Police identified 4,000 possible victims.

The phone hacking scandal began to unravel in 2007, when royal reporter Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire were jailed for intercepting the voicemails of members of the Royal Household.
At the start of this trial  in Oct 2013 ,the scale of the hacking plot became clear when the Old Bailey was told that 3 former news editors at the newspaper were among 5 men who pleaded guilty to their part in the hacking plot.

Senior executives Greg Miskiw(64),Neville Thurlbeck( 52) and James Weatherup(58) all admitted playing a part in a six-year campaign of phone hacking which targeted politicians, pop stars and members of the Royal Family. 

Mulcaire(43) who was paid £100,000 a year by the paper to arrange the hacking, admitted intercepting the voicemails of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler, among a host of other victims.

Reporter Dan Evans, who appeared as a witness for the prosecution in the hacking trial, confessed to hacking Sienna Miller’s messages on actor Daniel Craig’s phone.

He has admitted conspiracy to hack phones at the Sunday Mirror between February 2003 and January 2005, and the same offence at the News of the World between April 2004 and June 2010.
He also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office and perverting the course of justice.
They will be sentenced alongside Andy Coulson after he was found  guilty of conspiring to hack phones.

News UK – the British newspaper publishing arm of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire – said it had put in place measures to ensure that the wrongdoing at the News of the World could not happen again.

The jury heard that phone hacking was so widespread at the News of the World that senior journalists even used a special hotline for ‘do-it-yourself hacking’ and targeted rival journalists.
Celebrities who were hacked include Sir Paul McCartney and his then wife Heather Mills, as well as Jude Law and Miller, his girlfriend at the time. 

Kate Moss, Will Young and Joanna Lumley were targeted too.

Note

News Corp closed the News of the World tabloid in 2011 amid a public uproar following disclosures that journalists at the paper back in 2002, had hacked the phone of British teenager Milly Dowler, who was later found murdered.

The resulting public and political outrage led to the closure of the 168-year-old paper and the setting up of a public inquiry to examine journalistic ethics.

The incident revived a police investigation of tabloid-newspaper tactics, including not only allegations of phone hacking but also bribing officials in the pursuit of scoops.

Tuesday June 24,2014 verdicts came three years after it was revealed that journalists on News of the World hacked the phone of then-missing teenager Milly Dowler in 2002, raising hopes that she was alive and checking messages, when in fact she had been murdered.