Phone hacking scandal deepens

[Jan Klimkowski]

Murdoch Minor's defence? I replied to the email but didn't read it 'cos I used my Blackberry.

Once again, this is either incompetence or a lie.

James Murdoch: I didn't read crucial phone-hacking email

News International boss was sent email in 2008 showing practice went beyond rogue reporter

Dan Sabbagh and Mark Sweney guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 13 December 2011 21.50 GMT

Fresh questions about the extent of James Murdoch's knowledge of the phone-hacking scandal were raised on Tuesday when it emerged he received an email that included a briefing indicating that the activity had not been confined to a single "rogue reporter".

News International's executive chairman wrote to MPs to say he had not properly read the June 7 2008 mail from News of the World editor Colin Myler which forwarded an account of the case being brought against the paper by the Professional Footballers' Association boss Gordon Taylor

The email chain appears to contradict Murdoch's insistence that he was not briefed in detail on the case which was later settled for more than £700,000.

The forwarded note from the paper's legal manager Tom Crone warned of a "nightmare scenario" because Taylor had obtained firm evidence of the hacking of one of his colleague's phones which involved at least one other News of the World journalist.

Myler's email also contained a second warning, from another lawyer retained by the News of the World, which added that Taylor's legal team wanted to demonstrate that phone hacking was "rife" throughout News International, the British parent company of the red top title.

Murdoch replied to the revealing email within three minutes of it being sent to him but insisted on the day the email chain was made public by the culture and media committee for the first time that he had only read the top of the email, not the email chain below.

Writing to MPs, Murdoch said: "I am confident that I did not review the full email chain at the time or afterwards," in part because Myler's note had been sent to him at the weekend.

Crone's forwarded note places pressure on Murdoch's account of his handling of the hacking affair because it refers to the email which became known as the "For Neville" mail, a key piece of evidence that showed hacking extended beyond a single rogue reporter.

Murdoch has always insisted he was not told about the existence of the "For Neville" email.

Crone and Myler have repeatedly told MPs that they briefed Murdoch about the email referred to in the newly-released emails as "the Ross Hindley email" in reference to the reporter who had transcribed hacked voicemails allegedly intended for the paper's chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck.

Three days after Myler sent the note that Murdoch says he did not read in full, the News Corp boss met the editor and Crone on 10 June 2008 to agree to settle the case in secret. News Corp, however, continued to maintain publicly that hacking was confined to a single "rogue reporter" until the end of 2010.

That "rogue reporter" was Clive Goodman who was jailed in 2007, for his part in hacking into phones belonging to officials working for Prince William and Prince Harry. Accounts of the 10 June meeting have been disputed for several months, with Murdoch telling parliament in July and November that he did not see the "For Neville" email, nor did he understand its significance.

Myler and Crone have repeatedly disputed Murdoch's account, saying the "For Neville" email was the sole reason for settling the case. The Murdoch disclosure came on the same day that Crone told the Leveson inquiry into press standards that he had always suspected phone hacking at the paper went beyond a single journalist, saying that he believed that the "rogue reporter" line was "erroneous from the outset".

Elsewhere, in the high court, a lawyer acting for Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator who was jailed for hacking phones for the News of the World, said his client had told Crone in 2007 that he was also instructed by another journalist, Ian Edmondson, the title's former news editor, to intercept voicemail messages.

The email chain forwarded to Murdoch by Myler also includes a note from Julian Pike, News International's external legal adviser at the firm Farrer's dated 6 June 2008. Pike says that Taylor's lawyer, Mark Lewis, has told him that he wants to demonstrate that hacking "is/was rife throughout the organisation" and he wants to "correct" the News International line that Goodman was a "rogue trader".

Crone commented on that note from Pike a day later, suggesting to Myler that "the best course of action" is to make a settlement offer to Taylor which would "amount to £700k [thousand]".

The two emails, were in turn, forwarded by Myler to Murdoch at 2.31pm on 7 June 2008, a Saturday. In a short email the then News of the World editor concludes that the status of phone-hacking case "is as bad as we feared". Myler asks for a meeting with his superior on Tuesday to discuss.

Murdoch acknowledged Myler's email almost immediately, responding at 2.34pm. "No worries," it began. "I am in during the afternoon. If you want to talk before I'll be home tonight after seven and most of the day tomorrow."

The email correspondence has come to light after it was unearthed by News Corp's in-house management and standards committee this month, which is working with the police and other outside bodies investigating claims of phone hacking against the News of the World. Linklaters, the law firm to the committee, passed the email chain to both Murdoch himself and the culture media and sport select committee.

Murdoch was first asked about the "For Neville" email when he appeared before MPs on the culture media and sport select committee with his father on 19 July of this year. He was asked by Tom Watson : "When you signed off the Taylor payment, did you see or were you made aware of the 'For Neville' email, the transcript of the hacked voicemail messages?" and replied: "No, I was not aware of that at the time."

In September, Myler and Crone, appearing together before the same group of MPs, said they had told Murdoch about the "For Neville email" in 2008. Murdoch was subsequently recalled by the MPs and insisted he had not been made aware that there was any evidence that hacking was more widespread than a single reporter.

In a statement, Murdoch said: "I was sent the email [from Colin Myler] on a Saturday when I was not in the office. I replied two minutes later accepting a meeting and did not read the full email chain. As I have always said, I was not aware of evidence of widespread wrongdoing or the need for further investigation."