Phone hacking scandal deepens

[David Guyatt]

The Dirty Digger has decided who is to be put to the sword.

It would be really interesting if Coulson had a "security blanket" that he can leak. Telling PLod Plc would, obviously, be a waste of time for him, due to the fact that the Digger owns Rozzer-land lock, stock and stinking barrel.

I Just had a though. Imagine Coulson going to Max Clifford for advice on how to proceed. Wot a laugh that would be.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/feb...ne-hacking

Andy Coulson knew about phone hacking, ex-colleague told MPs
Former News of the World executive said ex-editor probably told others to use illegal technique

James Robinson and Nicholas Watt
guardian.co.uk, Friday 4 February 2011 20.30 GMT


Andy Coulson quit as the Tories' director of communications because of continuing phone hacking allegations about his former job. Photograph: Oli Scarff/Getty Images

Andy Coulson was aware that phone hacking was taking place at Rupert Murdoch's newspaper empire and "told others to do it", a former executive at the News of the World told MPs.

In written evidence given to the home affairs select committee and published for the first time today, Paul McMullan, a former features executive and investigative journalist at the title, said former editor Coulson "knew a lot of people" used the technique when Coulson worked at sister paper the Sun. He joined the News of the World in 2003, where he worked alongside McMullan for 18 months.

McMullan said: "As he sat a few feet from me in the [News of the World] newsroom he probably heard me doing it, laughing about it … and told others to do it".

Coulson, who last month quit as David Cameron's director of communications, worked at the Sun for more than a decade before joining the News of the World.

"Andy Coulson knew a lot of people did it at the Sun on his Bizarre [showbiz] column and after that at the NOTW," McMullan claimed.

McMullan, who is now a pub landlord, also described a flourishing trade in private information at the News of the World, which he said was regularly supplied with details of celebrities' medical records and mobile phone pin numbers.

"People who worked for Vodaphone [sic] etc would sometimes ring up the newsdesk offering to sell numbers and codes of stars' phones," he said, "as indeed people at the tax office, people in doctors' receptions."

In separate evidence also published today, Vodafone told the committee: "A small minority of customers were targeted by unscrupulous individuals."

The company said it had passed all evidence to the police during their 2006 investigation into phone hacking carried out by former News of the World journalist Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire.

McMullan told the Guardian last year that Coulson must have been well aware the practice was "pretty widespread".

Coulson has continued to deny this.

The director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer, also confirmed in written evidence to MPs he has instructed the Crown Prosecution Service to adopt a far broader definition of what constitutes illegal phone hacking. This decision makes fresh prosecutions more likely. The CPS announced a new investigation into phone hacking last month. News International says McMullan's evidence is unreliable and will demand evidence is withdrawn or corrected.

The home affairs committee will publish its report into unauthorised phone hacking in the spring.

David Cameron was, meanwhile, accused tonight of "breathtaking arrogance" for refusing to answer questions about his links to Murdoch's media empire, which owns the Sun and News of the World.

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