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

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
Article history

Milly Dowler was last seen alive on 21 March 2002. Photograph: Surrey police/PA
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 are 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.

During 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 which 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 their own full-time private investigator, Glenn Mulcaire, the News of the World started illegally intercepting mobile phone messages. Scotland Yard are now investigating evidence that they hacked direct 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 were 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 which 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 them: "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, they 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 their activity from Surrey police. After they had hacked the message from the recruitment agency on Milly's phone, they 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."

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."

During the last four weeks, officers from Scotland Yard's new inquiry into the phone-hacking, Operation Weeting, have approached Surrey police and taken formal statements from some of those who were involved in the original inquiry. Two earlier Yard inquiries had failed to investigate the relevant notes in Mulcaire's logs.

The News of the World's investigation was part of a long-running campaign against paedophiles championed by the then editor, Rebekah Brooks. 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 the rest of his life for murdering Milly Dowler. A second charge, that he had attempted to abduct another Surrey schoolgirl, Rachel Cowles, had to be left on the file after premature publicity by tabloids were 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.

malena stool wrote:Thanks for this carmen.
The standards of integrity shown by our wonderful British press puts the methods used by Goebbels into a warm and rosy glow.

The frightening outcome of all this corruption and deceit is those people who made fortunes by allowing and encouraging these underhand and substandard methods of information gathering to develop are still out there, free and thriving.

Milly Dowler phone hacking: Politicians hit out over revelations
Tom Watson says NoW may have misled select committee while Lord Prescott calls for block on News Corp's BSkyB bid

guardian.co.uk, Monday 4 July 2011 18.41 BST
Article history

Milly Dowler was killed in March 2002. It has been revealed that her voicemail was hacked by the News of the World. Photograph: PA
A Labour MP has hit out at the News of the World for being involved in a "despicable and evil act" and called on the prime minister to act over the hacking of the phone of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler following her disappearance in March 2002.

Tom Watson informed MPs of the revelation, published on the Guardian website on Monday afternoon, which he said would not only shock parents "to the very core", but also "strongly suggests" that parliament was misled.

Later Watson said: "Surely now we should hear from David Cameron and Ed Miliband. It's utterly disgraceful that they've let this scandal run on for as long as it has. No more cowardice - we want action."

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

He tweeted: "The hacking of Milly Dowler's phone by Murdoch's News of the World proves once and for all he is not a fit and proper person to own BSkyB."

Detectives from Scotland Yard's new inquiry into phone hacking by newspapers, 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 a point of order, Watson referred to an inquiry into press standards conducted by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) select committee last year and asked the Speaker, John Bercow, how the Commons could address the matter.

Watson, a former minister, said: "In the last few minutes, it has just been revealed by the Guardian newspaper that Milly Dowler's phone was hacked by private investigators working for News of the World.

"The company [the News of the World] subsequently revealed the information to the Surrey police who were investigating the matter. As well as being a despicable and evil act that will shock parents up and down the land to the very core, it also strongly suggests that parliament was misled in the press standards inquiry held by the select committee in 2010."

The Speaker said he had only learned of the revelation from Watson himself five minutes before and suggested that the MP should "take it up" with the DCMS committee if he believed MPs were either misled or misinformed.

He went on: "In view of the gravity of the issue he has raised – with the details of which I was not previously familiar – I can say only it will have been heard by ministers on the Treasury [government] bench and if they judge in the circumstances that some sort of public response is desirable, as they might, I hope that response will be made on the floor of the House of Commons before it is made anywhere else."

Milly Dowler, then aged 13, disappeared on her way home in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey on 21 March 2002. Last month, Levi Bellfield was jailed for life for her murder.

Her family's lawyer issued a statement on Monday afternoon in which he described the News of the World's activities as "heinous" and "despicable".

The bugger, bugged
Hugh Grant
Published 12 April 2011

310 commentsPrint versionEmail a friendListenRSS
After a chance meeting with a former News of the World executive who told him his phone had been hacked, Hugh Grant couldn’t resist going back to him – with a hidden tape recorder – to find out if there was more to the story . . .



When I broke down in my midlife crisis car in remotest Kent just before Christmas, a battered white van pulled up on the far carriageway. To help, I thought. But when the driver got out he started taking pictures with a long-lens camera. He came closer to get better shots and I swore at him. Then he offered me a lift the last few miles to my destination. I suspected his motives and swore at him some more. (I'm not entirely sympathetic towards paparazzi.) Then I realised I couldn't get a taxi and was late. So I had to accept the lift.

He turned out to be an ex-News of the World investigative journalist and paparazzo, now running a pub in Dover. He still kept his camera in the car's glove box for just this kind of happy accident.

More than that, he was Paul McMullan, one of two ex-NoW hacks who had blown the whistle (in the Guardian and on Channel 4's Dispatches) on the full extent of phone-hacking at the paper, particularly under its former editor Andy Coulson. This was interesting, as I had been a victim - a fact he confirmed as we drove along. He also had an unusual defence of the practice: that phone-hacking was a price you had to pay for living in a free society. I asked how that worked exactly, but we ran out of time, and next thing we had arrived and he was asking me if I would pose for a photo with him, "not for publication, just for the wall of the pub".

I agreed and the picture duly appeared in the Mail on Sunday that weekend with his creative version of the encounter. He had asked me to drop into his pub some time. So when, some months later, Jemima asked me to write a piece for this paper, it occurred to me it might be interesting to take him up on his invitation.

I wanted to hear more about phone-hacking and the whole business of tabloid journalism. It occurred to me just to interview him straight, as he has, after all, been a whistleblower. But then I thought I might possibly get more, and it might be more fun, if I secretly taped him, The bugger bugged, as it were. Here are some excerpts from our conversation.

Me So, how's the whistleblowing going?
Him I'm trying to get a book published. I sent it off to a publisher who immediately accepted it and then it got legal and they said, "This is never going to get published."
Me Why? Because it accuses too many people of crime?
Him Yes, as I said to the parliamentary commission, Coulson knew all about it and regularly ordered it . . . He [Coulson] rose quickly to the top; he wanted to cover his tracks all the time. So he wouldn't just write a story about a celeb who'd done something. He'd want to make sure they could never sue, so he wanted us to hear the celeb like you on tape saying, "Hello, darling, we had lovely sex last night." So that's on tape - OK, we've got that and so we can publish . . . Historically, the way it went was, in the early days of mobiles, we all had analogue mobiles and that was an absolute joy. You know, you just . . . sat outside Buckingham Palace with a £59 scanner you bought at Argos and get Prince Charles and everything he said.
Me Is that how the Squidgy tapes [of Diana's phone conversations] came out? Which was put down to radio hams, but was in fact . . .
Him Paps in the back of a van, yes . . . I mean, politicians were dropping like flies in the Nineties because it was so easy to get stuff on them. And, obviously, less easy to justify is celebrities. But yes.
Me And . . . it wasn't just the News of the World. It was , you know - the Mail?
Him Oh absolutely, yeah. When I went freelance in 2004 the biggest payers - you'd have thought it would be the NoW, but actually it was the Daily Mail. If I take a good picture, the first person I go to is - such as in your case - the Mail on Sunday. Did you see that story? The picture of you, breaking down . . . I ought to thank you for that. I got £3,000. Whooo!
Me But would they [the Mail] buy a phone-hacked story?
Him For about four or five years they've absolutely been cleaner than clean. And before that they weren't. They were as dirty as anyone . . . They had the most money.
Me So everyone knew? I mean, would Rebekah Wade have known all this stuff was going on?
Him Good question. You're not taping, are you?
Me [slightly shrill voice] No.
Him Well, yeah. Clearly she . . . took over the job of [a journalist] who had a scanner who was trying to sell it to members of his own department. But it wasn't a big crime. [NB: Rebekah Brooks has always denied any knowledge of phone-hacking. The current police investigation is into events that took place after her editorship of the News of the World.]
It started off as fun - you know, it wasn't against the law, so why wouldn't you? And it was only because the MPs who were fiddling their expenses and being generally corrupt kept getting caught so much they changed the law in 2001 to make it illegal to buy and sell a digital scanner. So all we were left with was - you know - finding a blag to get your mobile [records] out of someone at Vodafone. Or, when someone's got it, other people swap things for it.
Me So they all knew? Wade probably knew all about it all?
Him [...] Cameron must have known - that's the bigger scandal. He had to jump into bed with Murdoch as everyone had, starting with Thatcher in the Seventies . . . Tony Blair . . . [tape is hard to hear here] Maggie openly courted Murdoch, saying, you know, "Please support me." So when Cameron, when it came his turn to go to Murdoch via Rebekah Wade . . . Cameron went horse riding regularly with Rebekah. I know, because as well as doorstepping celebrities, I've also doorstepped my ex-boss by hiding in the bushes, waiting for her to come past with Cameron on a horse . . . before the election to show that - you know - Murdoch was backing Cameron.
Me What happened to that story?
Him The Guardian paid for me to do it and I stepped in it and missed them, basically. They'd gone past - not as good as having a picture.
Me Do you think Murdoch knew about phone-hacking?
Him Errr, possibly not. He's a funny bloke given that he owns the Sun and the Screws . . . quite puritanical. Sorry to talk about Divine Brown, but when that came out . . . Murdoch was furious: "What are you putting that on our front page for? You're bringing down the tone of our papers." [Indicating himself] That's what we do over here.
Me Well, it's also because it was his film I was about to come out in.
Him Oh. I see.
Me Yeah. It was a Fox film.
[A pause here while we chat to other customers, and then - ]
Him So anyway, let me finish my story.
Me Murdoch, yes . . .
Him So I was sent to do a feature on Moulin Rouge! at Cannes, which was a great send anyway. Basically my brief was to see who Nicole Kidman was shagging - what she was doing, poking through her bins and get some stuff on her. So Murdoch's paying her five million quid to big up the French and at the same time paying me £5.50 to fuck her up . . . So all hail the master. We're just pawns in his game. How perverse is that?
Me Wow. You reckon he never knew about it?
Him [pause] I don't even think he really worried himself too much about it.
Me What's his son called?
Him James. They're all mates together. They all go horse riding. You've got Jeremy Clarkson lives here [in Oxfordshire]. Cameron lives here, and Rebekah Wade is married to Brooks's son [the former racehorse trainer Charlie Brooks]. Cameron gets dressed up as the Stig to go to Clarkson's 50th birthday party [NB: it was actually to record a video message for the party]. Is that demeaning for a prime minister? It should be the other way round, shouldn't it? So basically, Cameron is very much in debt to Rebekah Wade for helping him not quite win the election . . . So that was my submission to parliament - that Cameron's either a liar or an idiot.
Me But don't you think that all these prime ministers deliberately try to get the police to drag their feet about investigating the whole [phone-hacking] thing because they don't want to upset Murdoch?
Him Yeah. There's that . . . You also work a lot with policemen as well . . . One of the early stories was [and here he names a much-loved TV actress in her sixties] used to be a street walker - whether or not she was, but that's the tip.
Me and Chum MLTVA?!
Me I can't believe it. Oh no!
Chum Really??
Him Yeah. Well, not now . . .
Chum Oh, it'd be so much better if it was now.
Him So I asked a copper to get his hands on the phone files, but because it's only a caution it's not there any more. So that's the tip . . . it's a policeman ringing up a tabloid reporter and asking him for ten grand because this girl had been cautioned right at the start of his career. And then I ask another policemen to go and check the records . . . So that's happening regularly. So the police don't particularly want to investigate.
Me But do you think they're going to have to now?
Him I mean - 20 per cent of the Met has taken backhanders from tabloid hacks. So why would they want to open up that can of worms? . . . And what's wrong with that, anyway? It doesn't hurt anyone particularly. I mean, it could hurt someone's career - but isn't that the dance with the devil you have to play?
Me Well, I suppose the fact that they're dragging their feet while investigating a mass of phone-hacking - which is a crime - some people would think is a bit depressing about the police.
Him But then - should it be a crime? I mean, scanning never used to be a crime. Why should it be? You're transmitting your thoughts and your voice over the airwaves. How can you not expect someone to just stick up an aerial and listen in?
Me So if someone was on a landline and you had a way of tapping in . . .
Him Much harder to do.
Me But if you could, would you think that was illegal? Do you think that should be illegal?
Him I'd have to say quite possibly, yeah. I'd say that should be illegal.
Me But a mobile phone - a digital phone . . . you'd say it'd be all right to tap that?
Him I'm not sure about that. So we went from a point where anyone could listen in to anything. Like you, me, journalists could listen in to corrupt politicians, and this is why we have a reasonably fair society and a not particularly corrupt or criminal prime minister, whereas other countries have Gaddafi. Do you think it's right the only person with a decent digital scanner these days is the government? Whereas 20 years ago we all had a go? Are you comfortable that the only people who can listen in to you now are - is it MI5 or MI6?
Me I'd rather no one listened in, to be honest. And I might not be alone there. You probably wouldn't want people listening to your conversations.
Him I'm not interesting enough for anyone to want to listen in.
Me Ah . . . I think that was one of the questions asked last week at one of the parliamentary committees. They asked Yates [John Yates, acting deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan Police] if it was true that he thought that the NoW had been hacking the phones of friends and family of those girls who were murdered . . . the Soham murder and the Milly girl [Milly Dowler].
Him Yeah. Yeah. It's more than likely. Yeah . . . It was quite routine. Yeah - friends and family is something that's not as easy to justify as the other things.
Me But celebrities you would justify because they're rich?
Him Yeah. I mean, if you don't like it, you've just got to get off the stage. It'll do wonders.
Me So I should have given up acting?
Him If you live off your image, you can't really complain about someone . . .
Me I live off my acting. Which is different to living off your image.
Him Yeah, but you're still presenting yourself to the public. And if the public didn't know you -
Me They don't give a shit. I got arrested with a hooker and they still came to my films. They don't give a fuck about your public image. They just care about whether you're in an entertaining film or not.
Him That's true . . . I have terrible difficulty with him [points to pap shot of Johnny Depp]. He's really difficult. You know, I was in Venice and he was a nightmare to do because he walks around looking like Michael Jackson. And the punchline was . . . after leading everyone a merry dance the film was shot on an open balcony - I mean, it was like - he was standing there in public.
Me And you don't see the difference between the two situations?
Chum He was actually working at this time? As opposed to having his own private time?
Him You can't hide all the time.
Me So you're saying, if you're Johnny Depp or me, you don't deserve to have a private life?
Him You make so much more money. You know, most people in Dover take home about £200 and struggle.
Me So how much do you think the families of the Milly and Soham girls make?
Him OK, so there are examples that are poor and you can't justify - and that's clearly one of them.
Me I tell you the thing I still don't get - if you think it was all right to do all that stuff, why blow the whistle on it?
Him Errm . . . Right. That's interesting. I actually blew the whistle when a friend of mine at the Guardian kept hassling me for an interview. I said, "Well if you put the name of the Castle [his pub] on the front page of the Guardian, I'll do anything you like." So that's how it started.
Me So, have you been leant on by the NoW, News International, since you blew the whistle?
Him No, they've kept their distance. I mean, there's people who have much better records - my records are non-existent. There are people who actually have tapes and transcripts they did for Andy Coulson.
Me And where are these tapes and transcripts? Do you think they've been destroyed?
Him No, I'm sure they're saving them till they retire.
Me So did you personally ever listen to my voice messages?
Him No, I didn't personally ever listen to your voice messages. I did quite a lot of stories on you, though. You were a very good earner at times.

Those are the highlights. As I drove home past the white cliffs, I thought it was interesting - apart from the fact that Paul hates people like me, and I hate people like him, we got on quite well. And, absurdly, I felt a bit guilty for recording him.

And he does have a very nice pub. The Castle Inn, Dover, for the record. There are rooms available, too. He asked me if I'd like to sample the honeymoon suite some time: "I can guarantee your privacy."

-- Listen to the audio now --

News Corp may face fit-and-proper test
Robert Peston

COMMENTS (2)

The Guardian alleges that the News of the World hacked into Milly Dowler's mobile phone
Executives at News International, the UK arm of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, say they were unaware until today of allegations that the mobile phone of the murdered teenager Milly Dowler was hacked at the instigation of the News of the World.

Only when the Guardian rang them for a comment about its latest remarkable story did News International learn of the latest assault on the reputation of the UK's largest newspaper group.

They will endeavour to learn as much as they can about the alleged interception and deletion of messages left for Miss Dowler by talking to the police tomorrow.

But they recognise the stakes are high, especially since there is an escalating clamour of voices saying that the apparent systematic invasion of individuals' privacy by the News of the World makes News Corporation unfit to own all of British Sky Broadcasting, and that the Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt should block News Corp's attempt to buy the 61% of BSkyB it doesn't already own.

Sources close to Mr Hunt tell me he is powerless to block the takeover on those grounds, because Business Secretary Vince Cable set the terms of the investigation of the takeover as being exclusively about whether the deal would harm plurality or choice in the media.

Mr Cable could have specified that there should be a review of whether News Corp is a fit and proper owner, but he chose not to do so. That means, according to my source, that Mr Hunt's hands are tied.

That said, the media regulator Ofcom is not constrained in this way, according to a government official. Ofcom does have the power to determine whether News Corp is a fit-and-proper owner of all of BSkyB, or even its current holding of 39%.

However, Ofcom can't make the adjudication until the police have completed their investigation of the extent of hacking and other invasions of people's privacy by the News of the World.

In the meantime, the priority for News International, according to its executives, is to attempt to demonstrate to the wider world that it has properly acknowledged what went wrong and taken steps to reform management in a way that would prevent any such recurrence of what it regards as extreme practices by journalists.

It has appointed the lawyers Olswang to review whether News International has introduced the appropriate governance procedures and structures to prevent its staff using unacceptable practices to obtain information.

Badboy wrote:SHOULD ONE BOYCOTT THE NEWS OF THE WORLD?

malena stool wrote:

Badboy wrote:SHOULD ONE BOYCOTT THE NEWS OF THE WORLD?

I don't take any daily, just the Mercury every night under protest

Badboy wrote:

malena stool wrote:

Badboy wrote:SHOULD ONE BOYCOTT THE NEWS OF THE WORLD?

I don't take any daily, just the Mercury every night under protest

is it poisonous by any chance?

5 July 2011 Last updated at 04:14 GMT
Police to meet NoW executives over Milly hacking claims

Police are to meet News of the World executives to discuss allegations that a private investigator working for the paper hacked into the mobile phone of murdered girl Milly Dowler.

Labour has demanded a full inquiry into claims Glenn Mulcaire hacked into her voicemail while she was missing.

The Guardian has claimed he intercepted messages left by relatives and said the NoW deleted some.

NoW parent firm News International said the development was of "great concern".

A lawyer for the Dowler family, Mark Lewis, said the alleged hacking dated from 2002 when the NoW was under the editorship of Rebekah Brooks (nee Wade) - now News International's chief executive.

In a statement, he said: "Sally and Bob Dowler have been through so much grief and trauma without further distressing revelations to them regarding the loss of their daughter.

'Despicable and evil'
"It is distress heaped upon tragedy to learn the News of the World have 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 gave them false hope is despicable."

Solicitor for the Dowlers, Mark Lewis: "It is distress heaped upon tragedy"
He also said the Dowlers had been told their own phones were targeted.

The Guardian claims that after Milly's voicemail facility became full, the NoW deleted messages it had already listened to.

It quotes one source as saying that this gave false hope to friends and family, who mistakenly believed that Milly herself had cleared her message inbox and that therefore she was still alive.

By that time, she had been murdered by a nightclub doorman, Levi Bellfield, who was convicted of the killing last month.

The Guardian also alleges that the NoW employed another private investigator, Steve Whittamore, to illegally obtain ex-directory numbers for families called Dowler living in Walton-on-Thames, where Milly and her family lived.

Continue reading the main story
Analysis
Matt Prodger
Home affairs correspondent
This is a watershed in a phone hacking scandal which has hitherto focused largely on the plight of celebrities whose phones were hacked. They're entitled to privacy as much as anyone, but there's been a limit to the public's sympathy.

Not so with Milly Dowler, the 13-year-old victim of a hideous crime; the messages said to have been hacked were the frantic enquiries of family and friends desperate to know of her whereabouts. It will turn most people's stomachs.

It's more trouble for News International, long criticised for allegedly failing to come clean about the extent of the phone hacking by its journalists. Andy Coulson resigned twice because of it; first as NoW editor, then as Downing Street's director of communications.

Rebekah Brooks was editor of the NoW at the time of the Milly Dowler abduction. She's long denied knowledge of phone hacking. Today she's chief executive of News International. But for how much longer?

A News International spokesman said it had been co-operating fully with the police inquiry into hacking since News International's "voluntary disclosure in January restarted the investigation into illegal voicemail interception".

He said: "This particular case is clearly a development of great concern and we will be conducting our own inquiries as a result.

"We will obviously co-operate fully with any police request on this should we be asked."

Labour leader Ed Miliband described the alleged hacking as a "cruel and immoral act" and said the police inquiry had to "get to the bottom of who was responsible for this and who was complicit in it".

Public figures
The claims about Milly Dowler are significant in the overall phone hacking inquiry, which has until now focussed largely on the intrusion into the private lives of celebrities.

Nick Davies, the special correspondent from the Guardian who wrote the story, told the BBC: "The editor of the News of the World at the time that this particular episode took place was Rebekah Brooks, who is now Rupert Murdoch's chief executive in the UK.

"This is one of the very few episodes that happened when she was editing the paper, and she's clearly going to have to answer some questions about what she knew about what was going on."

The BBC's political editor Nick Robinson said the allegations had "changed the character, if not the nature, of the hacking saga" and "moved many in Westminster who previously regarded the story as a question of interest only to those excited by media ethics or the privacy of celebrities".

In January, the High Court will hear claims from five test cases involving public figures who say their phones were hacked into.

They are former footballer Paul Gascoigne, actor Jude Law, sports agent Sky Andrew, interior designer Kelly Hoppen and MP Chris Bryant.

The cases arise out of the disclosure of information by the Metropolitan Police relating to material forfeited by Mulcaire.

He and former NoW royal editor Clive Goodman were jailed in 2007 over tapping the phones of members of the royal household.

Five alleged victims have reached out-of-court settlements with the newspaper, including celebrity publicist Max Clifford, who received a reported £1m.

Five journalists have been arrested over the allegations.

Badboy wrote:SHOULD ONE BOYCOTT THE NEWS OF THE WORLD?

News International's Rebekah Brooks 'won't resign'
COMMENTS

The chief executive of News International is expected to say she wasn't involved in hacking

Rebekah Brooks is not planning to resign as chief executive of Rupert Murdoch's UK operations, I have learned - even though the voicemails of Milly Dowler's mobile phone were allegedly intercepted at the instigation of the News of the World when she was editor of the Sunday tabloid in 2002.

Later today she is expected to tell staff at News International, the UK arm of Mr Murdoch's News Corporation, that she is deeply shocked by the allegations, which News International has been working through the night to substantiate. However she insists that she was not involved in that instance of alleged phone hacking, or others, and knew nothing about it.

Ms Brooks has spoken to Rupert Murdoch, and is under no pressure from him to stand down. "He is backing her 100%", said a News International executive - who insisted that it was only under her tenure as News International's chief executive that the company had resolved to uncover what had gone wrong in the past and to deliver all relevant documents and information to the police.

She remains in charge of the process of assisting the police in their enquiries, known as Operation Weeting, to determine whether criminal charges should be brought against those journalists implicated in hacking mobile phones and other invasions of individuals' right to privacy.

"She is committed to find out the truth of what happened here and leading the company through this difficult time" said one of her colleagues. "Her job is to see this through".

Executives from News International are meeting the police at 9.30 this morning, for what they say is the 50th or so meeting with officers since they began their enquiries.

@Peston

Rupert Murdoch is "backing her (Rebekah Brooks) 100%" - http://bbc.in/kkJp4s
less than a minute ago via BBC Website

Chris wrote:Its appalling that Cable (very vocal in opposition about corporate governance in the banks) choose to make the remit for the BSkyB take-over so narrow it is almost impossible for it to fail. I see Rebekah (Wade) Brooks is doing the usual NI defence "I knew nothing Guv". Murdoch seems to have a habit of employing senior executives into his organisation who don't seem to have a clue what their underlings are doing - allegedly. Perhaps he needs to employ a better firm of headhunters.

carmen wrote:

Chris wrote:Its appalling that Cable (very vocal in opposition about corporate governance in the banks) choose to make the remit for the BSkyB take-over so narrow it is almost impossible for it to fail. I see Rebekah (Wade) Brooks is doing the usual NI defence "I knew nothing Guv". Murdoch seems to have a habit of employing senior executives into his organisation who don't seem to have a clue what their underlings are doing - allegedly. Perhaps he needs to employ a better firm of headhunters.

Have you seen this

https://missingmadeleine.forumotion.net/t15845-jeremy-hunt-stop-rupert-murdoch-s-power-grab

3 days to send an email (template drafted

Chris wrote:

carmen wrote:

Chris wrote:Its appalling that Cable (very vocal in opposition about corporate governance in the banks) choose to make the remit for the BSkyB take-over so narrow it is almost impossible for it to fail. I see Rebekah (Wade) Brooks is doing the usual NI defence "I knew nothing Guv". Murdoch seems to have a habit of employing senior executives into his organisation who don't seem to have a clue what their underlings are doing - allegedly. Perhaps he needs to employ a better firm of headhunters.

Have you seen this

https://missingmadeleine.forumotion.net/t15845-jeremy-hunt-stop-rupert-murdoch-s-power-grab

3 days to send an email (template drafted

Yes thanks. The template to Hunt seems flawed if the article above in this thread is correct since part of its focus is that Murdock is "unfit". As I understand it Cable has effectively blocked that as a DTI objection. Prescott seems more on the ball by taking it to Ofcom who can consider the wider aspects.