New revelations in
UK hacking scandal
Police report second instance of hacking in a murder case
By Bill Cromwell
Jul 29, 2011
Yesterday James Murdoch got his first major vote of confidence since the News of the World hacking scandal blew up three weeks ago when the directors of British Sky Broadcasting agreed unanimously to keep him on as chairman.
But Murdoch's future is far from secure.
Yesterday new allegations emerged about hacking at the scandal-plagued London paper, now shuttered, and they may be the most damaging yet, with the Guardian newspaper reporting that the mother of a second child murder victim may also have been targeted for hacking by the tabloid.
Heads have already begun to roll with this latest damning revelation.
Peta Buscombe, the head of the British Press Complaints Commission, today announced plans to step down over the mishandling of the NOTW case, after her commission at one point cleared the tabloid of any misdeeds and criticized The Guardian and reporter Nick Davies for pushing forward on the story.
The big question remains what these new revelations will mean for the career and fortunes of Murdoch, the son of News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch.
He is now the top executive at News International after the resignation and arrest of former NOTW editor Rebekah Brooks, and public outrage over the case is sure to grow with yesterday's round of new allegations.
This latest hacking revelation regards Sara Payne, mother of Sarah Payne, an 8-year-old girl who was abducted and murdered 11 years ago. It appears a phone belonging to the mother may have been hacked by the now-infamous NOTW investigator Glenn Mulcaire, according to Scotland Yard.
This is the second instance in which a phone in a murder case was alleged to have been hacked by reporters at the NOTW.
The first was in the case of 12-year-old Milly Dowler, who was killed in 2002. When it became public earlier this month that her phone had been hacked, it set off the furor that quickly erupted into the most sensational media scandal in London in decades.
The Dowler case infuriated the public because it represented such a calloused, unthinkable intrusion into the life of a family suffering through the worst sort of tragedy.
The Payne hacking has the potential to enrage people even more.
Not only was the NOTW reporting on the case, along with the rest of London's media, but the paper took up the case as a cause, acting as an advocate on the mother's behalf, even pushing for a law named after the young victim.
At one point, Brooks as editor of the paper gave the mother a cell phone to help her keep in touch with Sarah's many supporters.
The mother was so touched by the gesture that she wrote a farewell editorial in the final edition of the News of the World several weeks ago.
As it turns out, it was this phone that was hacked, according to police.
Meanwhile, here are yesterday's other developments in the phone hacking case that continues to roil Britain:
* On Twitter yesterday a rumor spread swiftly that CNN host Piers Morgan, who edited the Daily Mirror at a time when several reporters have alleged phone hacking took place, had been suspended because of his involvement in the case. The news originated in the UK, but it was quickly disseminated throughout the media world until CNN denied the rumor to The New York Times and others. Later Morgan himself weighed in.
"Sorry to disappoint you all,” Morgan tweeted. “But … I’ve not been suspended by CNN."
* James Murdoch will likely be called before Parliament's culture committee to testify over the next few weeks. A request by Labour MP Tom Watson to have Murdoch immediately recalled was voted down.
* The legal team representing Mulcaire has written a letter to News Corp. demanding that the company begin paying his legal fees again, after News Corp. announced last week that it had stopped.
* Former NOTW employees who were promised jobs at News Corp. in the wake of the paper's closure are complaining to the Guardian about what those job opportunities are. They say they include undesirable positions in places such as Finland and Siberia.
* Finally, British comedian Jonathan May-Bowles was convicted today of assaulting the elder Murdoch during last week's Parliament hearings, when he threw a foam pie at the 80-year-old. He pleaded guilty to assault and to causing harassment, alarm or distress, and will be sentenced on Tuesday.
On the way out of the courtroom he quipped, "This has been the most humble day of my life," echoing Murdoch's famous quote from last week's hearings.
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