News Of The World Hacked Into–Then Deleted–Missing Girl’s Voice Mail

by Alex Alvarez | 10:51 am, July 5th, 2011

» 13 comments

A report by The Guardian has revealed that British newspaper News of the World interfered with the investigation into the disappearance of Milly Dowler (pictured), a young girl last seen alive in March of 2002.

Scotland Yard is now looking into allegations that News of the World hired a private investigator to hack into the girl’s voice mails. What’s more, it appears that journalists at the paper read — and then deleted — several of the girl’s messages in the days following her disappearance “in order to free up space for more messages,” inadvertently giving her family false hope that she may still be alive.

The Guardian describes the paper’s plan:

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 Whittamore found could be obtained lawfully on 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 its own full-time private investigator, Glenn Mulcaire, the News of the World started illegally intercepting mobile phone messages. Scotland Yard is now investigating evidence that the paper hacked directly 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 was 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 paper intervened – and deleted the messages that 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 case casts a harsh light on News of the World‘s then-editor, Rebekah Brooks, now Rupert Murdoch‘s chief UK executive. Murdoch’s News International, the paper’s parent company, says it is cooperating with the investigation. Brooks, for her part, says she is “sickened” by news of the hacking and finds it “inconceivable that I knew or worse, sanctioned these appalling allegations.” She has informed News International staff via memo that she has no plans to step down.

A lawyer for the Dowler family said his clients are now pursuing a damages claim against the paper.

h/t The Guardian

Milly Dowler, News of the World, Phone Hack, The Guardian

Nature Freak

(Reuters) – British Prime Minister David Cameron condemned the alleged hacking of a murdered schoolgirl’s voicemail by the News of the World, part of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, as the scandal closed in on a top News Corp executive and Murdoch protegee.
skyfet

I told you Murdoch and his cronies are low. How low can you get other than this?
redleaf

GOD DAMN LIBERAL MEDIA!!!
Oh, wait…
kvon

Rupert Murdoch, king of the appropriate…keep that dream alive folks.
mlb

Naive people, like Murdoch himself sat down and ordered and approved this? Not likely … as for Rebekah Brookes whether she knew the extend of what an over zealous reporter sanctioned his PI to do or not isn’t worth debating, she approved using him in the first place (something every news outlet uses) so ultimately she is responsible for any of his actions done on behalf of the paper legal or otherwise.
Jackie_Treehorn

Where are you Shelly? Fast on the trigger to condemn those vicious 13 year old Script Kiddie “liberals” but not a peep about this….

Right wing hypocrite….as usual with your kind.
Rescuedog2

“Brooks, for her part, says she is ‘sickened’ by news of the hacking and finds it ‘inconceivable that I knew or worse, sanctioned these appalling allegations.’”

Oops. The problem with lying is that you have to remember all your previous lies. She just tripped herself up big time (emphasis mine):

“The paper made little effort to conceal the hacking from its readers. On 14 April 2002 it published a story about a woman allegedly pretending to be Milly Dowler who had applied for a job with a recruitment agency: ‘It is thought the hoaxer even gave the agency Milly’s real mobile 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 its activity from Surrey police. After it had hacked the message from the recruitment agency on Milly’s phone, the paper 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.’”

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jul/04/milly-dowler-voicemail-hacked-news-of-world?CMP=twt_gu

Here’s the point: The News of the World article quoted above, in which the NOTW essentially admitted it hacked Millie Dowler’s voice mail, was published on April 14, 2002, which was during Rebekah Brooks’ editorship of that paper. Of course she knew about it! Does she expect us to believe she didn’t read her own paper?
Mia Kulper

This is entirely horrible and despicable but you can’t really lay it onto Rupert Murdoch. If Murdoch has integrity and wanted to show it, he’d check this ASAP and fire everybody involved.
OxyCon

Brock said Media Matters also plans to run a broad campaign against Fox’s parent company, News Corp., an effort which most likely will involve opening a United Kingdom arm in London to attack the company’s interests there. The group hired an executive from MoveOn.org to work on developing campaigns among News Corp. shareholders and also is looking for ways to turn regulators in the U.S., U.K., and elsewhere against the network.

The group will “focus on [News Corp. CEO Rupert] Murdoch and trying to disrupt his commercial interests — whether that be here or looking at what’s going on in London right now,” Brock said, referring to News Corp.’s — apparently successful — move to take a majority stake in the satellite broadcaster BSkyB.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0311/51949.html#ixzz1RHsd95IP
Tedderman

This kind of shit happens often at Rupert Murdochs news outlets. Take Fox news for example…..please.
mark98

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Anonymous

sure, the industry knows that Rebekah Brooks deleted the voice mails…..
Anonymous

sure, the industry knows that Rebekah Brooks deleted the voice mails…..