Quote:News International said on Thursday it has asked leading legal firm Olswang to draw up a new code of practice for the company in an effort to prevent a repeat of the phone-hacking affair at the News of the World.

In an email to staff the News International chief executive, Rebekah Brooks, said Olswang had been hired "to examine in great detail what can be learnt from the past".

Brooks added that Olswang "will recommend a series of policies, practices and systems to create a more robust governance, compliance and legal structure for our papers that we hope over time can become a standard for the industry".

Quote:Rupert Murdoch's News Corp and BSkyB could agree the terms of a £9.3bn takeover bid as early as 29 July, when the satellite broadcaster is due to announce its full-year results.

The culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, gave News Corp the green light to acquire the 60.9% of BSkyB it does not already own on Thursday subject to a short public consultation that ends midday 8 July on the proviso that Sky News is spun off as a separate company to allay plurality concerns.

Quote:Missing Milly Dowler's voicemail was hacked by News of the World

Deleted voicemails gave family false hope
Hacking interfered with police hunt
Family lawyer: actions 'heinous and despicable'

Nick Davies and Amelia Hill guardian.co.uk, Monday 4 July 2011 16.29 BST

The News of the World illegally targeted the missing schoolgirl Milly Dowler and her family in March 2002, interfering with police inquiries into her disappearance, an investigation by the Guardian has established.

Scotland Yard is investigating the episode, which is likely to put new pressure on the then editor of the paper, Rebekah Brooks, now Rupert Murdoch's chief executive in the UK; and the then deputy editor, Andy Coulson, who resigned in January as the prime minister's media adviser.

Milly's family lawyer this afternoon issued a statement in which he described the News of the World's activities as "heinous" and "despicable". Milly Dowler, then aged 13, disappeared on her way home in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey on 21 March 2002.

Detectives from Scotland Yard's new inquiry into the phone hacking, Operation Weeting, are believed to have found evidence of the targeting of the Dowlers in a collection of 11,000 pages of notes kept by Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator jailed for phone hacking on behalf of the News of the World.

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 so as 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.

The Guardian investigation has shown that, within a very short time of Milly vanishing, News of the World journalists reacted by engaging in what was then standard practice in their newsroom: they hired private investigators to get them a story.

Their first step was simple, albeit illegal. Paperwork seen by the Guardian reveals that they paid a Hampshire private investigator, Steve Whittamore, to obtain home addresses and, where necessary, ex-directory phone numbers for any families called Dowler in the Walton area. The three addresses that Whittamore found could be obtained lawfully, using the electoral register. The two ex-directory numbers, however, were "blagged" illegally from British Telecom's confidential records by one of Whittamore's associates, John Gunning, who works from a base in Wiltshire. One of the ex-directory numbers was attributed by Whittamore to Milly's family home.

Then, with the help of its own full-time private investigator, Glenn Mulcaire, the News of the World started illegally intercepting mobile phone messages. Scotland Yard is now investigating evidence that the paper hacked directly into the voicemail of the missing girl's own phone. As her friends and parents called and left messages imploring Milly to get in touch with them, the News of the World was listening and recording their every private word.

But the journalists at the News of the World then encountered a problem. Milly's voicemail box filled up and would accept no more messages. Apparently thirsty for more information from more voicemails, the News of the World intervened and deleted the messages that had been left in the first few days after her disappearance.

According to one source, this had a devastating effect: when her friends and family called again and discovered that her voicemail had been cleared, they concluded that this must have been done by Milly herself and, therefore, that she must still be alive. But she was not. The interference created false hope and extra agony for those who were misled by it.

The Dowler family then granted an exclusive interview to the News of the World in which they talked about their hope, quite unaware that it had been falsely kindled by the newspaper's own intervention. Sally Dowler told the paper: "If Milly walked through the door, I don't think we'd be able to speak. We'd just weep tears of joy and give her a great big hug."

The deletion of the messages also caused difficulties for the police. It confused the picture at a time when they had few real leads to pursue. It also potentially destroyed valuable evidence. According to one senior source familiar with the Surrey police investigation: "It can happen with abduction murders that the perpetrator will leave messages, asking the missing person to get in touch, as part of their efforts at concealment. We need those messages as evidence. Anybody who destroys that evidence is seriously interfering with the course of a police investigation."

The newspaper made little effort to conceal the hacking from its readers. On 14 April 2002, it published a story about a woman who was allegedly pretending to be Milly Dowler and who had applied for a job with a recruitment agency: "It is thought the hoaxer even gave the agency Milly's real mobile phone number … The agency used the number to contact Milly when a job vacancy arose and left a message on her voicemail … It was on March 27, six days after Milly went missing, that the employment agency appears to have phoned her mobile."

The newspaper also made no effort to conceal its activity from Surrey police. After it had hacked the message from the recruitment agency on Milly's phone, the paper informed police about it. It was Surrey detectives who established that the call was not intended for Milly Dowler. At the time, Surrey police suspected that phones belonging to detectives and to Milly's parents also were being targeted.

One of those who was involved in the original inquiry said: "We'd arrange landline calls. We didn't trust our mobiles."

However, they took no action against the News of the World, partly because their main focus was to find the missing schoolgirl and partly because this was only one example of tabloid misbehaviour. As one source close to the inquiry put it: "There was a hell of a lot of dirty stuff going on."

Two earlier Yard inquiries had failed to investigate the relevant notes in Mulcaire's logs.

In a statement today, the family's lawyer, Mark Lewis of Taylor Hampton, said the Dowlers were distressed at the revelation. "It is distress heaped upon tragedy to learn that the News of the World had no humanity at such a terrible time. The fact that they were prepared to act in such a heinous way that could have jeopardised the police investigation and give them false hope is despicable," he said.

The News of the World's investigation was part of a long-running campaign against paedophiles championed by the then editor, Rebekah Brooks. The Labour MP Tom Watson last week told the House of Commons that four months after Milly Dowler's disappearance the News of the World had targeted one of the parents of the two 10-year-old Soham girls, Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells, who were abducted and murdered on 4 August 2002.

The behaviour of tabloid newspapers became an issue in the trial of Levi Bellfield, who last month was jailed for life for murdering Milly Dowler. A second charge, that he had attempted to abduct another Surrey schoolgirl, Rachel Cowles, had to be left on file after premature publicity by tabloids was held to have made it impossible for the jury to reach a fair verdict. The tabloids, however, focused their anger on Bellfield's defence lawyer, complaining that the questioning had caused unnecessary pain to Milly Dowler's parents.

Surrey police referred all questions on the subject to Scotland Yard, who said they could not discuss it.

Quote:Phone hacking: Soham families contacted by police

Parents of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman contacted by detectives investigating phone hacking at the News of the World

Sandra Laville, James Robinson and Mark Sweney guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 5 July 2011 16.12 BST

The parents of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, the two children murdered by Ian Huntley, were contacted by Scotland Yard detectives investigating phone hacking at the News of the World, it emerged on Tuesday.

A spokesman for Cambridgeshire police said they were aware that the families of Wells and Chapman were contacted by the Metropolitan police about two months ago.

It is believed the families were warned there was evidence to suggest they were targeted by Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator who was formerly employed by the paper.

The families are thought to be seeking further clarification from the Met but are not currently commenting. Scotland Yard is conducting an investigation, Operating Weeting, into the News of the World phone-hacking allegations.

Pressure is growing on Rebekah Brooks, who was editing the News of the World at the time and is now chief executive of its parent company News International, following the Guardian's revelations on Monday that Mulcaire hacked into a mobile phone belonging to Milly Dowler in 2002, the same year as the Soham murders.

Schoolgirl Dowler went missing from her home in March 2002 and her body was found six months after she disappeared. The Soham murders took place in August that year.

Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, said earlier on Tuesday that Brooks should "consider her conscience and consider her position" as he called for a public inquiry into the hacking allegations and the conduct of the tabloid press as a whole.

Brooks insisted in an email to staff on Tuesday afternoon that she knew nothing about the allegations that Dowler's phone had been hacked by the paper she edited.

She said she was "sickened" by the events and added she was "determined to lead the company to ensure we do the right thing and resolve these serious issues".

News International executives insisted Brooks had the full backing of Rupert Murdoch, chairman and chief executive of News International's owner News Corporation.

Meanwhile, the chairwoman of the Press Complaints Commission, Baroness Peta Buscombe, which concluded in November 2009 there was "no new evidence" of widespread hacking at the News of the World following earlier Guardian revelations, admitted she had been "misled" by the News International paper.

Buscome said: "There's only so much we can do when people are lying to us. We know now that I was not being given the truth by the News of the World."

The home secretary, Theresa May, also added her voice to the growing chorus of politicians condemning the News of the World, including prime minister David Cameron.

May used stronger language than Cameron, who described the hacking of Dowler's phone as a "dreadful act" while visiting troops in Afghanistan. The home secretary told a committee of MPs on Tuesday afternoon: "I think it's totally shocking; frankly, it's disgusting. The mindset of somebody who thinks it's appropriate to do that is totally sick."

James Harding, the editor of the News of the World's News International stablemate the Times, also publicly condemned the behaviour, telling an audience of advertising executives that if "it [the Dowler allegation] is true, it seems to me what has happened is disgusting and indefensible and for us as journalists it is profoundly depressing".

Harding added: "My concern is, the shame is not just on the people involved, not just on that particular newspaper, but journalists in general."

The Labour MP, Tom Watson, said in the House of Commons earlier this year that the parents of the two girls killed by Huntley in Soham may have been hacked.

The public reaction to news that Dowler's phone was hacked has also been one of anger. Several hundred people have joined a Facebook site calling on readers to boycott the News of the World and some customers have cancelled their subscriptions to the Times and the Sunday Times, according to people close to News International.

The number of people cancelling is not thought to be high but it is regarded as symbolic internally. Members of the public have also been calling the News of the World's offices in London to complain about the paper's behaviour.

A senior News International executive said the atmosphere at the company was "subdued".

Quote:Rebekah Brooks: 'It's inconceivable I knew of Milly Dowler phone hacking'

News International chief executive tells staff she will not quit
Press complaints boss says News of the World lied to inquiry
Miliband calls on Brooks to consider 'her position'

James Robinson, Adam Gabbatt, Sandra Laville, Nick Davies and Amelia Hill guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 5 July 2011 14.32 BST

Rebekah Brooks has told employees it is "inconceivable" she knew that the News of the World hacked into Milly Dowler's mobile phone.

The News International chief executive said she was "sickened" by the events, but insisted she was "determined to lead the company" despite calls for her to resign.

Ed Miliband said Brooks should "consider her position" and has called for a public inquiry after the Guardian revealed the News of the World illegally accessed Dowler's voicemail messages under Brooks's editorship. David Cameron earlier described the hacking as a "truly dreadful act" and urged police to "pursue this in the most vigorous way", while the home secretary, Theresa May, said anyone who could commit such hacking was "sick".

Brooks, who was editing the paper at the time, emailed employees today to tell them: "It is inconceivable that I knew or worse, sanctioned these appalling allegations. I am aware of the speculation about my position. Therefore it is important you all know that as chief executive, I am determined to lead the company to ensure we do the right thing and resolve these serious issues."

Brooks said she has written to Milly Dowler's parents on Tuesday morning "to assure them News International will vigorously pursue the truth and that they will be the first to be informed of the outcome of our investigation".

She added: "I am sickened that these events are alleged to have happened. Not just because I was editor of the News of the World at the time, but if the accusations are true, the devastating effect on Milly Dowler's family is unforgivable."

Senior executives at News International discussed the Dowler revelations at a meeting with police this morning to talk about Scotland Yard's ongoing investigation into phone hacking. News International said Rebekah Brooks was not present at the meeting.

A senior source at the News of the World's owner said it was a pre-arranged meeting with officers from Operation Weeting, the Met's investigation into phone hacking that began at the start of the year.

Brooks said in her email: "This morning, in our regular Operation Weeting meeting, we have offered the MPS our full co-operation to establish the veracity of these fresh allegations."

Miliband had earlier called for a public inquiry and said Brooks should "consider her conscience and consider her position", as pressure mounts on the chief executive.


Meanwhile, the Press Complaints Commission chairwoman Peta Buscombe said she was lied to by the News of the World over phone hacking.

Buscombe had said in 2009 that the PCC was not misled by the News of the World during its own inquiry into phone hacking. However, on the BBC's Daily Politics show, she admitted she had been "misled by the News of the World".

"There's only so much we can do when people are lying to us. We know now that I was not being given the truth by the News of the World," Buscombe said. She denied having sided with the newspaper.

Miliband said the latest revelations in the News of the World phone-hacking saga were a "stain" on news reporting in the country. He added that the hacking "represents one of the darkest days in British journalism".

Earlier Cameron, currently in Afghanistan, said of the Guardian's revelation that the News of the World illegally targeted Milly Dowler and her family: "If they are true this is a truly dreadful act and a truly dreadful situation."

He added: "There is a police investigation into hacking allegations … they should investigate this without any fear, without any favour, without any worry about where the evidence should lead them.

"They should pursue this in the most vigorous way that they can in order to get to the truth of what happened. That is the absolute priority as a police investigation."

The home secretary told the home affairs select committee the revelations were "totally shocking" but said she did not know if the News of the World used hacking in relation to the Soham murders.

May was asked if there should be a public inquiry into the affair, but said the ongoing police investigation should be allowed to run.

The Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, whose force is accused of not investigating phone hacking properly in the first place, said on Tuesday: "My heart goes out to the Dowler family."

He told BBC London: "I have to be very careful to say nothing that could prejudice our live investigation but if it is proved to be true, then irrespective of the legality or illegality of it, I'm not sure there is anyone who wouldn't be appalled and repulsed by such behaviour."

Former deputy prime minister Lord Prescott said on Twitter that he would write to the culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, demanding he block News Corp's bid to take full control of pay-TV company BSkyB following the revelations about Dowler.

However, John Whittingdale, the chairman of the culture, media and sport select committee, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that phone hacking at the News of the World should not taint the rest of Rupert Murdoch's empire. "You cannot necessarily condemn the entire of News Corp just because of the actions of some individuals in another part of the organisation," he said.

"News International is a part of News Corp but it's a different part. News Corp is a global enterprise and I don't think one should condemn the entire organisation because something very clearly was going wrong in the News of the World."

Detectives from Operation Weeting are believed to have found evidence of the targeting of the Dowlers in a collection of 11,000 pages of notes kept by Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator jailed for phone hacking on behalf of the News of the World.

In the past four weeks 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 to create space for more messages. As a result friends and relatives of Milly concluded wrongly she might still be alive. Police also feared evidence may have been destroyed.

Quote:Rebekah Brooks's survival strategy

News Corporation's ownership structure means its chief executive feels no need to answer questions about its conduct in the way a normal plc might

Dan Sabbagh guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 5 July 2011 17.03 BST

So much of News International's strategy to cope with the phone hacking issue looks as if it can be explained by one thing: its perceived need to protect Rebekah Brooks. No doubt that is the right thing to do; back in 2009 when this writer worked for the Times even the merest reference to Brooks's editorship of the News of the World was stripped out of the copy that made it into the newspaper. It was as if Andy Coulson had been the only editor of the red-top before Colin Myler took over.

News International's first strategy, of course, was deny, deny, deny all the allegations. That formed the heart of Wapping's initial response to the hacking allegations as raised by the Guardian two years ago (just as Brooks was being elevated from the Sun to be chief executive). It was Brooks who said that the Guardian "has substantially and likely deliberately misled the British public" a statement NI later tried to deny she had made when the number of hacking cases mounted up.

Since then Brooks has been careful about her public appearances. She does not give interviews on the subject of hacking, while working on the people that matter (well, David Cameron) over dinner. Recall, too, that she declined to appear before the MPs on the culture, media and sport select committee back in 2009, writing in January 2010 that it would be "pointless and a waste of the committee's time" because members were asking questions that did not relate to her time as editor of News of the World. There may be some more pertinent questions now.

Then there are today's events. In effect, Brooks, in her email to staff, has announced an inquiry into her own editorship of the News of the World. Here is what she said in that note:

Quote:I am determined that News International does everything it can to co-operate fully and proactively with the MPS, as we have been doing for some time, to verify the facts so we can respond in a robust and proper way.

It is almost too horrific to believe that a professional journalist or even a freelance inquiry agent working on behalf of a member of the News of the World staff could behave in this way.

If the allegations are proved to be true then I can promise the strongest possible action will be taken as this company will not tolerate such disgraceful behaviour.

I hope that you all realise it is inconceivable that I knew or worse, sanctioned these appalling allegations.

Fair enough, but would the public, politicians and shareholders have accepted an inquiry led by Sir Fred Goodwin into the doomed takeover of ABN Amro, or by Tony Hayward examining how he handled the Gulf of Mexico oil spill?

Quote:The deletion of the messages also caused difficulties for the police by confusing the picture when they had few leads to pursue. It also potentially destroyed valuable evidence.

According to one senior source familiar with the Surrey police investigation: "It can happen with abduction murders that the perpetrator will leave messages, asking the missing person to get in touch, as part of their efforts at concealment. We need those messages as evidence. Anybody who destroys that evidence is seriously interfering with the course of a police investigation."

The paper made little effort to conceal the hacking from its readers. On 14 April 2002 it published a story about a woman allegedly pretending to be Milly Dowler who had applied for a job with a recruitment agency: "It is thought the hoaxer even gave the agency Milly's real mobile number … the agency used the number to contact Milly when a job vacancy arose and left a message on her voicemail … it was on March 27, six days after Milly went missing, that the employment agency appears to have phoned her mobile."

The newspaper also made no effort to conceal its activity from Surrey police. After it had hacked the message from the recruitment agency on Milly's phone, the paper informed police about it.

It was Surrey detectives who established that the call was not intended for Milly Dowler. At the time, Surrey police suspected that phones belonging to detectives and to Milly's parents also were being targeted.

One of those who was involved in the original inquiry said: "We'd arrange landline calls. We didn't trust our mobiles."

However, they took no action against the News of the World, partly because their main focus was to find the missing schoolgirl and partly because this was only one example of tabloid misbehaviour. As one source close to the inquiry put it: "There was a hell of a lot of dirty stuff going on." Two earlier Yard inquiries had failed to investigate the relevant notes in Mulcaire's logs.

Quote:News of the World targets Met Police detective

Tuesday 05 July 2011

Exclusive: Channel 4 News learns that a Metropolitan Police detective was put under surveillance by News of the World journalists and his personal details targetted

The surveillance operation came during a crucial murder investigation which implicated private investigators who had alleged links to News International.

Channel 4 News understands Rebekah Brooks, then editor of the News of the World, was informed of the allegations by Scotland Yard at the time.

It was at a time when Rebekah Brooks - now one of the most powerful figures in the media industry - ran the tabloid News of the World and it was just three months after the alleged hacking into Millie Dowler's phone.

This is a story about a claim that Brooks was confronted by the police over allegations of her journalists targetting a murder detective. An astonishing story which at one point, we've been told, had the police secretly watching the News of the World watching the police.

Channel 4 News can reveal the story for the first time tonight.

At 9PM, 25th June 2002, BBC Crimewatch was about to announce yet another investigation into a notorious, unsolved murder.

The case involved the murder of Daniel Morgan, a private investigator who was found in the car park of a south London pub 24 years ago with an axe buried in his head.

The case collapsed again recently - for the fifth time - undermined hugely by police corruption in the early years. But it's what happened after this Crimewatch broadcast to the senior detective in charge, Dave Cook, which has never been told before.

Alastair Morgan, the brother of Daniel Morgan, the murdered private investigator spoke to Detective Dave Cook often during the investigation.

He told Channel 4 News: "Dave told me about it, he told me about it then but I didn't realise who the newspaper was at that point."

Within days of the Crimewatch broadcast, it's understood that Dave Cook had been told by colleagues he was being targetted by the News of the World.

Alastair Morgan describes what is supposed to have happened next: "I learned about the surveillance and then I learned that it was the News of the World that was carrying out the surveillance.

"Dave told me that he was out walking his dog, he was taking his dog for a walk one evening when he noticed a van in an odd location. I think he said behind some trees near his house. The following morning he noticed he was being followed."

It's alleged that the police discovered one of the vans was leased to the News of the World. So concerned were the police that a witness protection unit was mobilised - as well as a police counter surveillance team.

When finally confronted, the News of the World apparently said they were interested in whether Dave Cook was having an affair with a Crimewatch presenter Jacqui Hames. They were in fact married at the time. Jacqui Hames has told Channel 4 News she has been contacted by Operation Weeting Detectives investigating the phone hacking scandal.

What is so disturbing about this allegation is the timing of the targeting of Dave Cook. Because in the murder investigation he was leading, suspects in the case were private investigators who, it's alleged, had close links to the News of the World.

Channel 4 News also understands that Rebekah Brooks - now CEO of News International - knows all about this.

Because, it's claimed, there was a meeting at Scotland Yard in December 2002, in which the police challenged her over this.

We still do not know what the outcome of that meeting was, but both the News of the World and the Metropolitan Police appear never to have spoken about it publicly.

Tonight the News of the World told Channel 4 News: "News International has not been previously aware of these claims but will investigate any allegations that are put to them.

They say they are not in a position to confirm or deny whether any meeting took place or what may have been said if indeed a meeting did take place.

Magda Hassan Wrote:Why is Brooks/Wade being protected in all this? Who will she bring down with her if she goes?

Quote:E-mails have emerged of alleged payments to the police by the News of the World (NoW), triggering fresh calls to investigate the relationship between officers and Rupert Murdoch's newspaper empire.

As each twist and turn of the phone hacking scandal is played out, amid ever more serious claims, pressure mounts on the NoW.

Yet news that the Sunday tabloid's publisher, News International, has uncovered e-mails indicating tens of thousands of pounds were paid over the years to police also places the Met and other forces at the centre of the inquiry.

Celebrities and politicians whose phones may have been hacked have long criticised police for failing to properly investigate, not following up evidence and for being too close to the media.

But the e-mails have led to wider questions about the way the NoW may have obtained its stories and the motivation of the police.

Met Police commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson has confirmed Scotland Yard was handed documents last month indicating "inappropriate" payments were made to officers, and said an investigation had begun.

'Cynical cover-ups'

Paul Farrelly MP, a member of the Commons culture, media and sport select committee which has investigated hacking, has now called for an independent inquiry.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Nothing surprises me about the News of the World's behaviour; they've been getting away with cynical cover-ups over a long period of time.

"But what really disturbed us in the committee when we were investigating was the approach and evidence given by the police.

Click to play

Brooks: "We have paid police for information in the past"
"They closed the inquiry down; they clearly didn't investigate fully. And it's the question of the motivation behind that, whether it goes beyond normal press relations, that really is the justification for having an independent inquiry."

He said the overall police investigation - Operation Weeting - was not investigating the conduct of the Met Police and its relationship with the NoW, therefore an inquiry was needed, and one where evidence could be given on oath.

The e-mails have also thrust David Cameron's former spokesman Andy Coulson back at the centre of the scandal, as they date from his editorship of the NoW from 2003-7.

It was in 2003, as he sat next to Rebekah Brooks (then Rebekah Wade), as the pair gave evidence to a parliamentary inquiry into the press and privacy, that the question of police payments by journalists first hit the headlines.

Sun editor Ms Wade, formerly editor of the NoW, admitted "We have paid the police for information in the past".

At that point, Mr Coulson quickly interjected, saying they adhered to the editors' code and the law which forbids payment to the police for information.

Mr Coulson stood down as NoW editor in 2007 after royal editor Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire were jailed for hacking. He said he knew nothing of the offence but took responsibility as he was editor.

He has not commented on the latest allegations, although it has been reported he has told friends he suspects he is being used to deflect attention from News International.

'Abuse of process'

In a letter to Keith Vaz MP in April, Mrs Brooks - now News International's chief executive - said her answer in 2003 had been in response "to a specific line of questioning on how newspapers get information".

Mr Murdoch's key lieutenant denied she had any "knowledge of any specific cases".

The e-mails raise questions about which policemen were paid, which newspaper executives knew money was paid and who handed the payments over.

BBC legal correspondent Clive Coleman said that, if payments were made to officers, it also raised questions about which cases they related to, whether court cases followed and whether people may have the right to appeal based on an "abuse of process".

He said the public would want to know whether any officers named in the e-mails were now under suspicion, and if they were, whether they were involved in the current hacking investigation.

Media commentators have long suspected Fleet Street of practising "dark arts" when it came to gathering information.

But Roy Greenslade, professor of journalism at City University and Guardian commentator, said he never heard of any such payments when he was a senior executive and editor on the Sun and Daily Mirror in the 1980s and 90s.

"Of course, it might have happened without my knowledge. But, on those papers at least, there was no slush fund and any single payment over, say £100, would have raised questions from the managing editor," he said.

"So I very much doubt that any large payments were ever made. I may be guilty of naivety, however."

Roy Ramm, a former head of the Met's Specialist Operations, as well as the Flying Squad, said he was never offered money and had never heard of it happening in his 27 years' service.

"Policemen will always go for a drink and bite to eat with journalists... the relationship can be productive for both sides," he said.

"But I was never offered money. I can't describe that as anything other than corruption."

In September last year, the Met's assistant commissioner John Yates, who has conducted inquiries into hacking, denied any officers had made money out of the NoW.

"There's no evidence of that whatsoever," he told the Today programme.

"Of course, I'm not denying that there's a relationship between the Met Police, other police and the entire police service and the media, but to suggest it's improper you'd have to produce some evidence of that."

News International (NI) has issued its own statement about the alleged payment of police by the News of the World.

It said former director of public prosecutions Lord Macdonald QC had been appointed by News Corp's board to advise NI on the "extensive cooperation" with the Met over police payments at the NoW.

"The appointment, which was made in May, is one of a series of measures to address these issues since January 2011, when information was voluntarily disclosed by News International that reopened the investigation into illegal voicemail interception known as Operation Weeting."

The statement said NI could not comment on the details of the information for fear of prejudicing any ongoing inquiries.

NI was determined to deal "responsibly and correctly" with the issues that had arisen, it added.

Quote:Ms Wade made her admission in response to a question from Chris Bryant, the Labour MP for Rhondda. "We have paid the police for information in the past," she said. The MP asked if it would happen in the future; Andy Coulson, editor of the News of the World, interjected and said: "We have always operated within the code and within the law."

Mr Bryant said he believed it was illegal for police to be paid for information. Mr Coulson replied: "As I said, we have always operated within the code and within the law."

After the hearing, Alison Clark, the director of corporate affairs at News International, called reporters to clarify Ms Wade's evidence. She said: "It is not company practice to pay police for information."

Quote:Met chief: phone-hacking documents point to 'inappropriate payments'

Sir Paul Stephenson confirms News International documents appear to include information on payments to police officers

Haroon Siddique guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 6 July 2011 13.40 BST

The Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, has said that documents provided by News International as part of the investigation into phone hacking appear to include information on "inappropriate payments" to police officers.

His comments came after it was reported on Tuesday night that News International had given his force details of payments made by the News of the World to senior police officers between 2003 and 2007, the period when Andy Coulson was the paper's editor.

Stephenson said on Wednesday he was taking the "unusual step" of issuing a statement because of widespread media coverage and public interest surrounding Operation Weeting, the investigation into phone hacking.

He said: "I can confirm that on 20 June 2011 the MPS [Metropolitan police service] was handed a number of documents by News International, through their barrister, Lord Macdonald QC. Our initial assessment shows that these documents include information relating to alleged inappropriate payments to a small number of MPS officers."

He said the matter had been discussed with the Independent Police Complaints Commission, which concluded that it should continue to be investigated by Operation Elveden, led by the Met deputy assistant commissioner Sue Akers, in partnership with the force's Directorate of Professional Standards.

Stephenson added: "At this time we have not seen any evidence requiring a referral to the Metropolitan Police Authority in respect of any senior officer. Whilst I am deeply concerned by recent developments surrounding phone hacking they are a product of the meticulous and thorough work of Operation Weeting, which will continue. Operation Elveden will be equally thorough and robust. Anyone identified of wrongdoing can expect the full weight of disciplinary measures and if appropriate action through the criminal courts."

There have been suggestions from some quarters that the story relating to Coulson allegedly paying police officers, featured prominently in the Times, also part of the News International stable, on Tuesday, was a distraction exercise.

Labour MP Tom Watson told BBC News: "This is desperation from News International. They are trying to protect Rebekah Brooks [chief executive of News International], who rightly faces the ire of the nation today."

Quote:I want to inform the House of further evidence that suggests Rebekah Brooks knew about the unlawful tactics of News of the World as early as 2002, despite all her denials yesterday. Rebekah Brooks was present at a meeting with Scotland Yard when police officers pursing a murder investigation provided her with evidence that her newspaper was interfering with the pursuit of justice. They gave her the name of another executive at News International, Alex Marunchak. The meeting, which included Dick Fedorcio of the Metropolitan police, told her that News of the World staff were guilty of interference and party to using unlawful means to attempt to discredit a police officer and his wife. She was told of actions by people she paid to expose and discredit David Cook and his wife Jackie Haines so that Mr Cook would be prevented from completing an investigation into a murder. News International were paying people to interfer with police officers and were doing so on behalf of known criminals. We know now that News International had entered the criminal underworld.

She cannot deny being present at this meeting when the actions of people she was paying were exposed. She cannot deny now being warned that under her auspices unlawful tactics were being used with the purpose of interfering with the pursuit of justice. She cannot deny that one of her staff, Alex Marunchak, was named and involved. She cannot deny either that she was told by the police that her own paper was using unlawful tactics, in this case to help one of her law-breaking investigators. This in my views shows her culpability goes beyond taking the blame as head of the organisation. It is about direct knowledge of unlawful behaviour.

And was Mr Marunchak dismissed. No. He was promoted.

Quote:The whole board of News International is responsible for this company. I believe Mr James Murdoch should be suspended from office while the police now investigate what I believe is his personal authorisation of the cover-up of this scandal. Mr James Murdoch is the chairman. It is clear now that he personally and without board approval authorised money to be paid by his company to silence people who have been hacked and to cover up criminal behaviour within his organisation. This is nothing short of an attempt to pervert the course of justice.