Phone hacking scandal deepens

[Jan Klimkowski]

My emphasis in bold:

But it is the section relating to phone-hacking that could yet have the most impact. The MPs' inquiry into the practice was reopened after the Guardian's revelation last July that the News of the World had secretly paid out £1m in costs and in settlements to Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Footballers' Association, and two others, over phone hacking allegations.

The committee, which took evidence from executives from News International, said financial settlements paid by the News Group newspapers left them with "a strong impression silence has been bought".

The report condemned the paper's own inquiry into how widespread the practice was "far from 'full' or 'rigorous'," as it had assured MPs and the Press Complaints Commission.

MPs were scornful of the newspaper's repeated insistence that Goodman, who was jailed for hacking into the private voicemails of royal aides, was a "rogue reporter", acting alone and that no one else on the newspaper knew about or condoned phone hacking.

Today's report makes a nonsense of the claim, saying it was "inconceivable" that Goodman was alone in knowing about phone hacking.

It details contradictory testimony by New International executives, and what it termed "collective amnesia" and "deliberate obfuscation" by witnesses.

The organisation's chief executive, Rebekah Brooks, repeatedly refused to give evidence to the MPs.

In a unanimous finding, the cross-party committee said: "We strongly condemn this behaviour which reinforces the widely held impression that the press generally regard themselves as unaccountable and that News International in particular has sought to conceal the truth about what really occurred."

The report states that it is now likely the number of phone-hacking victims "will never be known".

The reality is that Murdoch's mob were using private investigators and their knowledge/technology to bug unknown numbers of private individuals.

The information gathered ostensibly resulted in "scoop" stories.

However, the Select Committe missed the elephant in the room, which is that some of the information, covertly gathered, could be used to exert leverage over the rich or politically powerful.

This undermines the political fabric of the nation, and so, naturally, has been swept under the proverbial carpet.

In passing, I note that the Rebekah Brooks who "repeatedly refused to give evidence to the MPs" is of course Rebekah Wade, now Murdoch's female representative on Earth, and about whom I once made a film for BBC4.

Rebekah gets down on her knees and pays obeisance to the Dirty Digger, Rupert Murdoch, alone. She knows he is more powerful than a bunch of backbench MPs.