News Of The World

The News of the Screws is finished. Murdoch pulled the plug; too late probably. Their crime has been going on too long. Too much power is involved for justice to be in with a chance. A few underlings will be thrown to the wolves. Murdoch has already proved this by sacking everyone except the chief perpetrator, Brooks.

But the big picture looks different. The left are howling for Murdoch's head on a plate while the politicians see another opportunity to make bad law and screw the media. Mirror Group News is far more guilty - see They Are On the Verge of Killing Popular Journalism. The police pretend they are investigating their own. Keeping them out of prison is the name of the game.

The right epitaph? The Screws was about muckraking rather than journalism.

 

Police Refuse To Investigate Piers Morgan
Robert Henderson feeds them open and shut evidence. They refuse to act. They commit perjury. Business as usual.

 

News Of The World Editor Authorized Police Bribes [ 6 July 2011 ]
QUOTE
Andy Coulson, the former aide to the Prime Minister, was editor of the News of the World when the newspaper paid police for information, it was revealed last night. In a move likely to put further pressure on David Cameron to open an inquiry into allegations of phone hacking, News International, publishers of the Sunday tabloid, confirmed that it had passed information to Scotland Yard about payments made by the paper to police officers.
UNQUOTE
This is just what Murdoch is admitting now. To read more you will have to pay the man £1. Coulson was one of his. Coulson worked for Cameron until the excrement got into the cooling system. Coulson discredits both of them.

 

Guardian Gloats About Murdoch's Phone Hacking Crime Investigation [ 7 July 2011 ]
QUOTE
Nick's first story on the full extent of the phone-hacking scandal was published almost exactly two years ago – on 8 July 2009. It was – or should have been – explosive. It reported that a major global media company – News International – had paid out £1m secretly to settle legal cases which revealed criminality within their business.............. The Metropolitan police – led by Assistant Commissioner John Yates – announced an inquiry. And then, within the space of a few hours, he announced the inquiry was over and there was nothing to inquire into.......

One positive step yesterday was the announcement that there would be at least one public inquiry into what on earth was going on within the Metropolitan police.
UNQUOTE
Presumably Yates has got a story that will keep him out of prison. If not he will have very soon.

 

News Of The World Is Finished [ 8 July 2011 ]
QUOTE
End of the World: James Murdoch announces phone hack scandal paper will shut down this Sunday - but Rebekah Brooks survives

Britain's biggest-selling Sunday newspaper The News Of The World will close after a final edition this weekend, it was sensationally announced today. Beleaguered News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks was in tears as she told staff that there was no choice in the wake of the phone hacking scandal which has engulfed the whole company. But as she clung on to her own post despite huge pressure to quit, stunned NotW staff reacted with fury.
UNQUOTE
The News of the Screws is done. Not many will say RIP. Sales of 3.5 million mean an income of at least £3.5 million a week which sounds like a living for a lot of people. Moral: When the advertisers walk the game is up. That is what Michael Jackson found after the stories got too loud.

 

Bent Copper Claims News Of The World Bunged Filth £30 Thousand [ 8 July 2011 ]
QUOTE
Paddick: 'News International handed police envelopes stuffed with £20k in Wapping McDonald's'
Total payments 'top £100,000'
Met Police ask IPCC to investigate illegal payments
A former Scotland Yard chief has revealed that police officers were paid up to £30,000 for information by journalists in 'clandestine' money drops at branch of McDonald's..............  The total in illegal payments received by police from journalists is understood to top £100,000, according to the Evening Standard, which quoted a source as saying: 'They were very large sums, coming to more than six figures.'
UNQUOTE
The main stream media are treating this as major news. To them it translates into job security issue. Honest men can take a more relaxed view of matters.

 

Parliament Ignored Bribery Back In 2003 [ 8 July 2011 ]
QUOTE
Prof Robert Pinker, Press Complaints Commission
On  11 March 2003,  the editor of the Sun newspaper,  Rebekah Wade, admitted before the Culture,  Media and Sport  Commons Select Committee that while she had been an  editor with News International  she had paid police officers for  information. The information was given in answer to a direct question from the  Labour MP,  Chris Bryant. I enclose a  Daily  Telegraph report  dated 14  March 2003 which contains details  of  Miss Wade’s  admission.  I was there in person when she  made the  admission.

By  paying police officers  for information,  not only  does  the police  officer  commit a criminal offence under  the  Public  Bodies Corruption  Act  1889 (as  amended   by the Prevention of Corruption Act of 1916) in receiving the  money  or other material inducement,  so does the person paying  the  bribe.  Anyone of normal intelligence will  realize  that  bribing police officers is illegal.
UNQUOTE
The main stream media are covering the closure of the  News of the Screws big time but they are ignoring the crimes committed by various policemen. Ditto for Parliament.

 

Police Ask - Was There A Cover-Up At Murdoch HQ? [ 9 July 2011 ]
QUOTE
Police are investigating evidence that a News International executive may have deleted millions of emails from an internal archive in an apparent attempt to obstruct Scotland Yard's inquiry into the phone-hacking scandal. The archive is believed to have reached back to January 2005, revealing daily contact between News of the World editors, reporters and outsiders, including private investigators. The messages are potentially highly valuable both for the police and for the numerous public figures who are suing News International (NI).
UNQUOTE
Taking this one at face value is not the way to go. Police took bribes so the chances of an honest investigation are zero. Cameron, a slimy patter merchant hired Coulson who is in the middle of this one. Rebekah Wade, who has not been sacked by Murdoch told Parliament back in 2003 that police had been bribed to give information. Parliament decided to ignore her story. Too many crooks with power are involved. The Grauniad did not finger Alastair Campbell, another political apparatchik who helped Blair lie his way into power.

 

Murdoch, Cameron, Miliband, Crime And The News Of The World [ 10 July 2011 ]
QUOTE
The summer season is upon us and this week was all about parties, not least the party that Rupert Murdoch held two weeks ago attended by David Cameron and Ed Miliband. The News International Summer Party at the Orangery in Kensington takes on great significance in the light of the subsequent arrest of Andy Coulson and the expected arrest (according to a senior News of the World journalist who spoke to Guido) of five more News International executives. It will be remembered for more than just the champagne and oysters, Ed Miliband went with his spin master, Tom Baldwin, [ a coke lover it seems - Editor ] who is himself a controversial ex-employee of News International. Also paying court to Rupert Murdoch were David Miliband, Ed Balls, Yvette Cooper, Douglas Alexander and Stewart Wood. Labour actually outnumbered Cameron's entourage which included his press spokeswoman, Gabby Bertin and Oliver Craig [ Craig Oliver in the BBC version of truth - Ed.] who replaced Andy Coulson.

Fast forward to this week and the parties of note were Arianna Huffington's parties to launch the Huffington Post - one held in parliament's Moncrief Bar at the beginning of the week and one held at the top of the Millbank Tower on Wednesday.

The talk of the week has been Murdoch's News of the World crisis, the Milly Dowler hacking shocked the nation and the political class such that it spelt the unexpected end for the paper. Within days it was closed by Murdoch and Andy Coulson was arrested. Ed Miliband is now trying to capitalise on Andy Coulson's demise at David Cameron's expense, despite having his own version of Coulson in the person of Tom Baldwin (see "Ed's Glass House"). In January Baldwin even wrote a memo advising the Labour Shadow Cabinet to lay off News International.
UNQUOTE
Guido gets to the heart of the matter. The moral here is that they are all in it together. Politicians come and go; Rupert Murdoch is forever. Private Eye tells us that Murdoch cancelled Davos to take over damage control in London. Guido pretty much confirms it. Who pulls the strings in England? Not politicians, not those we see anyway.
PS Here are more and better details regarding Tom Baldwin. The book is Dirty Politics Dirty Times.

 

Murdoch's Morals [ 12 July 2011 ]
QUOTE
Murdoch's dirty tricks against Palestinians
The newspaper conglomerate is not only behind smear campaigns against the Palestinian cause, it supports corruption.

Hacking the mobile phones of British families who had lost loved ones to sexually depraved violent criminals, al-Qaeda inspired "terrorists" and Taliban insurgents proved the tipping point that led to the closure of Britain's most popular Sunday newspaper The News of the World, first published in London in 1843 and printed for the very last time on Sunday July 9, 2011.

To adopt a current media idiom, hacking these telephones at times of deep family grief became toxic for Rupert Murdoch's News International media empire because public support for precisely these victims sits at the heart of all Murdoch's political strategies. As a result, Murdoch has been forced to mount a damage limitation exercise on an unprecedented scale in an effort to protect his global media empire from the fallout.
UNQUOTE
Al Jazeera goes for the testicles using Robert Lambert, the Co-Director of the European Muslim Research Centre at the University of Exeter. One can see their point. The truth is a weapon. Murdoch is a Zionist who colludes with the terrorists running Palestine, the Stolen Land. This is why he abuses Palestinian patriots while favouring Arab dictators who pander to American oil interests. Lambert is the Co-Director of the European Muslim Research Centre at the University of Exeter.

 

Murdoch Apologizes And Sacks The Editor [ 15 July 2011 ]
QUOTE
Rebekah Brooks finally resigned [ as in go or else - Editor ] as chief executive of News International as the phone-hacking scandal engulfing News Corporation led Rupert Murdoch to issue an abject apology for what he described as "serious wrongdoing". Less than 24 hours after insisting the company had made only "minor mistakes" in handling the crisis, a contrite Murdoch arranged a private meeting with the family of Milly Dowler and issued a full-page apology in every national newspaper for his company's behaviour.

Downing Street admitted that David Cameron hosted Andy Coulson at Chequers in March two months after his resignation as the Downing Street director of communications. Labour accused the prime minister of an "extraordinary lack of judgment" in extending an invitation to Coulson, who was arrested last week. The former NoW editor denies any knowledge of phone hacking.

The fallout from the scandal is placing intense pressure on Sir Paul Stephenson, the Met police commissioner. Cameron is said to be furious that Stephenson did not tell him he had hired Neil Wallis, the former NoW deputy editor arrested this week, to advise him on media relations. Stephenson has been asked to explain himself to Theresa May, the home secretary.
UNQUOTE
Rupert Murdoch was using the perpetrators.
Cameron was using a perpetrator.
The head pig was using a perpetrator.
They are all trying to lie their way out of it so there is no chance of an honest result.
Parliament is full of thieves who Ignored Bribery Back In 2003 when they were told about by the editor of the Screws.
PS The Guardian is full of self righteous glee but it has skeletons of its own. Private Eye is as near as it gets to honest reporting in England.

 

 

Murdoch's Bribes Violate American Law [ 17 July 2011 ]
QUOTE
Imagine you're a Fleet Street reporter at a British tabloid with a pocketful of cash. You meet a trusted source at a pub, a police officer who tells you about the royal family's confidential schedule in exchange for a small gratuity. You hand over a few quid and rush off with a photographer to stake out a health club where Camilla Parker-Bowles is toning her abs. Guess what: If you work for Rupert Murdoch, you may have violated U.S. law...........

If you're entirely honest in the company's internal books and enter the payment as a "bribe," you've just created an irrefutable piece of evidence that can be used against you and your company in a prosecution by the Justice Department for violating U.S. statutes against overseas bribery.....

News International Limited, the British arm of the Murdoch empire, is a subsidiary of News Corp., a publicly traded American company which also owns the Wall Street Journal and Fox News (not to mention the Sunday Times of London, the Times of London, and the British tabloid the Sun). Because of this, experts say, News Corp. and all of its subsidiaries come under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a Watergate-era law which makes it a crime for U.S. companies to participate in bribery abroad.
UNQUOTE
Murdoch is unlikely to go to prison for overseas bribery which is a pity. The police who took the bribes will get away with it too. The police know they can hang together or they can hang separately. But read the next one for the truth about the agenda.

 

They Are On the Verge of Killing Popular Journalism [ 17 July 2011 ]
QUOTE
Back in September 2010 Guido produced, with the help of the Information Commissioner’s Office, this “blagging” chart. The idea that this crisis is only about News International is fanciful. Look who had the most recorded offences:

 

From the Information Commissioner’s report one can infer that at least 140 Mirror Group journalists could be looking at criminal charges. The Operation Motorman investigation was based on a group of blaggers used frequently by Mirror and Mail journalists to obtain information. Missing from this chart is The Telegraph, who according to a Guido source paid a private detective to hold a seminar at their Canary Wharf offices on how to hack phones back in 2000. The bribing of staff at HMRC, the DVLA, BT, the Land Registry, banks and  in the police has been endemic for decades.  That is where the news you read is sourced.

In short every major newsroom in the land has used illegal techniques to obtain information.  We are on the verge of criminalising hundreds of journalists.

We mocked George Monbiot this week for saying “this is our Berlin Wall moment“. On reflection there is a similarity, the Stasi HQ spied on the ordinary citizenry with all the paraphernalia of a police state. In Britain newspaper HQs spied on celebrities and the famous to entertain ordinary citizens.  As readers we rewarded them by buying their papers.

Most of the hacking hacks will get suspended sentences and conditional discharges. Will they still be fit and proper journalists? Without the infotainment aspect of newspapers how will popular investigative journalism be financed?  We are in danger of either killing off popular journalism or heading towards a French style subsidised newspaper sector, emasculated and servile to the rich and powerful…  [ such as the Rutting Chimpanzee Jew Who Ran The IMF - Editor ]
UNQUOTE
Guido is right about something very important. Murdoch is a shit pandering to vicious criminals. So are hundreds of politicians. They are using this one for their own advantage.
PS Trinity was owned by the Jew, Maxwell - War Criminal, Traitor, Oaf And Thief

 

Metropolitan Police Chief Took A £12 Thousand Bung   [ 17 July 2011 ]
QUOTE
Britain's top police officer accepted a free five-week stay at a top health spa where News of the World hacking suspect Neil Wallis was a PR consultant. Sir Paul Stephenson was today facing a battle to cling onto his job as it was revealed he accepted the £12,000 freebie from Chimneys where the ex-executive editor worked. The Metropolitan Police Commissioner was already under pressure after it emerged that he hired Mr. Wallis as a PR consultant for the force.

Scotland Yard denied that it was the 60-year-old ex-journalist who had arranged the stay for the top officer as he recovered from surgery. Stephen Purdue the managing director laid on the stay at the resort to provide him with the accommodation. But the disclosure will raise further questions about Sir Paul's judgment, days after he faced a dressing down from London Mayor Boris Johnson over the PR contract.
UNQUOTE
Why was it offered? Nobody ever offers me that kind of thing. In fact nobody offers me anything because I can't do any favours in return. The last chief of the Met who gave us any real reason to believe he wasn't bent as a nine bob note was Robert Mark who finished in 1977. That leaves plenty of time for corruption to blossom again in London. In fact Sir Robert got rid of 478 men from the CID [ http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/oct/01/sir-robert-mark-obituary ] by giving the uniformed lot immunity to prosecution. Sadly he only got 50 prosecutions. It can be done. It needs to keep on being done. Sir Robert was an outsider so nobody in the Met could blackmail him. Where does that leave Stephenson? As another chancer who hasn't been caught before.
PS Why did the Daily Mail publish this one just as the pressure is building up on the media? Could it be warning to rogues in politics?

 

Sir Robert Mark Said:-
QUOTE
"I had served in provincial forces for 30 years, and though I had known wrongdoing, I had never experienced institutionalised wrongdoing, blindness, arrogance and prejudice on anything like the scale accepted as routine in the Met," he recalled of his arrival. However, he had the backing of the Home Office, a large proportion of the uniformed branch and enough senior officers to ensure there was no overt rebellion against the activities of the anti-corruption branch. Those against whom there was insufficient evidence for a charge were offered the chance to leave early, and many did, to the applause of the honest majority. The boil was lanced. Mark was knighted in 1973.
UNQUOTE
I have my doubts about the proposition that there is an honest majority or even an honest minority.

 

Metropolitan Police Chief Resigns After £12 Thousand Bribe Publicity [ 18 July 2011 ]
QUOTE
Britain's top police officer has resigned and turned on the prime minister in a dramatic escalation of the phone-hacking scandal. In a carefully worded resignation speech that appeared aimed directly at Downing Street, Sir Paul Stephenson, the commissioner of the Metropolitan police, said the prime minister risked being "compromised" by his closeness to former  News of the World editor Andy Coulson..........

Stephenson denied that he was resigning over allegations that he accepted £12,000 worth of hospitality from Champney's health spa, focusing instead on his decision not to inform the prime minister that the Met had employed Coulson's former deputy Neil Wallis as a strategic adviser.....

Senior police sources confirmed the attack had been intentional and showed the anger at Scotland Yard that Stephenson has been willing to resign over the scandal while the political class has failed to take responsibility in the same way. An ally of Stephenson said: "The commissioner thought if the prime minister is happy employing Andy Coulson, and Neil Wallis has bid the lowest price, what reason would we have not to employ him?"
UNQUOTE
Stephenson is out - police
Brooks is out - media
News of the Screws is out - media
Cameron is not although he had no hesitation about hiring a perpetrator - politics.
Labour is just as corrupt - politics.

 

Murdoch Bought His Victims Off For $655 Million - There Was A Lot To Hide [ 18 July 2011 ]
QUOTE
“Bury your mistakes,” Rupert Murdoch is fond of saying. But some mistakes don’t stay buried, no matter how much money you throw at them.

Time and again in the United States and elsewhere, Mr. Murdoch’s News Corporation has used blunt force spending to skate past judgment, agreeing to payments to settle legal cases and, undoubtedly more important, silence its critics. In the case of News America Marketing, its obscure but profitable in-store and newspaper insert marketing business, the News Corporation has paid out about $655 million to make embarrassing charges of corporate espionage and anticompetitive behavior go away.
UNQUOTE
Buying victim's silence is an approach; it is a proof of guilt. That kind of money proves lots of guilt. The victims bought off were just those big enough to sue.

 

News Of The World Editor Is Tenth To Be Arrested While Corrupt Police Walk The Streets [ 18 July 2011 ]
QUOTE
Rebekah Brooks was released from police custody on Sunday night, a full 12 hours after her arrest by detectives investigating allegations of phone hacking and corrupting of police officers by the News of the World.....

Operation Elveden is hunting officers alleged to have received up to £130,000 over several years from the NoW for information, including contact details of the royal family.
UNQUOTE
The police are searching for the criminals who took bribes - allegedly!!! Finding them should be very, very easy. But they will fail because they are investigating their own. Policing as normal from the finest force that money can buy.

 

News of the Screws Loses Its First Man Dead [ 19 July 2011 ]
QUOTE
It’s development after development today, and a particularly sad one at the close of play. The former News of the World journalist Sean Hoare, who was the first to allege that Coulson knew about phone hacking, has been found dead in his Watford home. He was plighted [ sic - blighted perhaps - Editor ] by drink and drug addiction – for which Coulson sacked him. Although the death is unexplained, the Guardian report that the police are not currently treating it as suspicious. That’s sure to satisfy everyone. 
UNQUOTE
Ten have merely been arrested. Now one is permanently out of it. Private Eye has been telling us that everyone knew what was going on. I have no doubt they were right.

 

Yates Resigns From Police Over Phone Hacking  [ 19 July 2011 ]
QUOTE
The Metropolitan police assistant commissioner John Yates has become the second high-profile Scotland Yard officer to resign over the phone-hacking scandal. The resignation of Yates – the country's top counter-terrorism officer – comes a day after his boss, the Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, stepped down....... His decision to quit came as the Metropolitan Police Authority's professional standards cases subcommittee held a meeting to consider a slew of complaints against him....... Vaz told Yates that his evidence was unconvincing and warned him it was "not the end of the matter".
UNQUOTE
Being told that you are lying in your teeth by a greasy little race hustler like Vaz, a major figure in the Asian Mafia is not really going to enhance your career prospects. Nor is letting major criminals walk away laughing.
PS Resigning means he cannot be done under the Police Conduct Regulations. It is a standard tactic for crooked police when questions get asked.

 

Murdoch Claims Ignorance [ 20 July 2011 ]
QUOTE
Rupert Murdoch defiantly insisted on Tuesday he was not responsible for what he called "sickening and horrible invasions" of privacy committed by his company, claiming he had been betrayed by disgraceful unidentified colleagues and had known nothing of the cover-up of phone hacking.......

In a halting performance, at times pausing, mumbling and mishearing, Murdoch said those culpable were "the people I hired and trusted, and perhaps then people who they hired and trusted". But he denied the accusation he had been "willfully blind" about the scandal........

In a Westminster hearing screened worldwide, he repeatedly tried to avoid identifying the specific culprits in his company, often blaming earlier legal counsel for inadequate advice or leaving his son to explain his behaviour. But in separate testimony to the home affairs select committee, Lord Macdonald [ who has his very own bit of previous, was subsequently at it with some blonde - see The agony of a wife - Editor ], the former head of the CPS, now on contract with News International, revealed it had taken him three to five minutes to examine documents kept by the company's solicitors showing widespread criminality at the company.....

Macdonald said in his view the criminality revealed was "completely unequivocal", adding when he reported his findings to the News International board recently there was surprise and shock. He said: "I cannot imagine anyone looking at the file would not say there was criminality," including payments to police.

The file was kept at the solicitors Harbottle & Lewis, and the police investigation is now centering on which executives tried to conceal its contents. In May 2007 Harbottle & Lewis sent a two-paragraph letter to News International executives claiming their examination of the documents showed there was no evidence any senior executives knew of illegal activities by the reporter Clive Goodman, or of any other illegal activities [ In order to pervert the course of justice or not as the case may be - Editor ]........

In tense opening exchanges Murdoch revealed he had mounted no investigation when Brooks told parliament seven years ago that the News of the World had paid police officers for information. He said: "I didn't know of it." He also admitted he had never heard of the fact that his senior reporter at the News of the World, Neville Thurlbeck, had been found by a judge to be guilty of blackmail [ Not according to the Wiki - Ed. ].
UNQUOTE
The most important view of the whole thing comes from Guido Fawkes, They Are On the Verge of Killing Popular Journalism. Politicians hate the free press; so do rich business men. Even corrupt journalism slows them down. The Mirror mob is far more guilty than Murdoch's lot.
 
PS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_International_phone_hacking_scandal goes over the ground all the way back to 2003.

 

Max Clifford Bought Off For £1 Million By Murdoch [ 20 July 2011 ]
QUOTE
Celebrity PR agent Max Clifford has been paid more than £1 million to drop a court case against the News of the World after his mobile phone was tapped. Other public figures whose phones were tapped could now be tempted to mount similar legal action against the tabloid, Mr. Clifford's solicitor told the Standard today. Any such moves would embarrass Andy Coulson, director of communications for Tory leader David Cameron, who quit as News of the World editor in 2007 after the scandal was exposed.

Charlotte Harris, of JMW solicitors, said there were strong grounds for future challenges after the judge in the Clifford case ordered a private investigator, Glenn Mulcaire, to reveal all the people he worked with at the News of the World. She said: “Public figures have now become alert to the fact that private information may have been intercepted, including their mobile telephone messages................

Mr. Clifford struck a deal with Rebekah Brooks, chief executive of the News of the World's parent company. He said today that he was “looking forward to continuing the successful relationship that I experienced with the News of the World for 20 years before my recent problems”.
UNQUOTE
This is slightly old news [ 10 Mar 2010 ] but significant.

 

Mirror Group Paid Blagger £442,878 for Illegally Obtained Info [ 31 July 2011 ]
QUOTE
65 Invoices Paid by Piers Morgan’s Daily Mirror
Guido has  - completely legally - obtained the raw data from the British Information Commissioner’s ‘Operation Motorman’ investigation.  A number crunching analysis of the data shows that between 1997 and 2003 Mirror Group newspapers were invoiced 948 times by “JJ Services”, run by Steve Whittamore, a notorious blagger who specialised in illegally obtaining personal information. For that six year period the total value of the invoices amounted to £442,878.73.

Many of these invoices are addressed to MGN Ltd, publishers of the Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror.  Nevertheless Guido has identified at least 65 invoices, totalling £20,333.31 which are directly to the Daily Mirror. These invoices are dated between 2001 and 2002. Piers Morgan was the Editor of the Mirror throughout this period.

On Desert Island Discs Morgan told Kirsty Young that, “Not a lot of that went on. A lot of it was done by third parties, rather than the staff themselves,” adding, “That’s not to defend it, because obviously you were running the results of their work.” Almost half-a-million quid suggests that quite a lot of that went on.

The “blagging” invoices are for phone records, vehicle registration records, ex-directory numbers, to monitor mobile calls, obtain phone bills and get numbers called as well as paying off bent police officers to provide information. It could be medical records, criminal records or tax records. Blagging is a criminal offence punishable with up to two years jail time. Kate Winslet was blagged and the information was used by Piers Morgan, as he admits in his 10 April 2000 diary entry in The Insider:

“I got back to the office to learn that Kate Winslet, having indicated she would come to our Pride of Britain awards tomorrow, is now saying she can’t. Someone had got hold of her mobile number — I never like to ask how — so I rang her …. ‘Hello,’ she said, sounding a bit taken aback. ‘How did you get my number? I’ve only just changed it. You’ve got to tell me, please, I am so worried now’ ”

“Never liking to ask” is what is known legally as “willful blindness” which is when an individual seeks to avoid civil or criminal liability for a wrongful act by intentionally putting himself in a position where he will be unaware of facts which would render him liable. Or contrives to pretend such. It doesn’t work in Court because the law takes the view that it is criminally reckless to fail to find out. That in a nutshell is what Piers is, criminally reckless…
UNQUOTE
It is equivalent to procuring stolen goods knowing that they have been stolen. But they are abusing Murdoch's mob while covering up for the police, politicians [ remember the light fingers, the expenses ] and media generally.

 

Guardian Used Same Hackers As The News of the World [ 9 August 2011 ]
QUOTE
A Guido co-conspirator, Jon Dell, spotted this line in an old copy of Campaign!: Selling of the Prime Minister by Rodney Tyler published back in 1987. Bugging Thatcher of course wouldn’t have bothered the Guardian, it would have been “in the public interest”. As they define it…

Currently The Guardian’s David Leigh is on his high horse with Guido, claiming we’re spreading “malicious lies“ about him............ Instead he warns Guido by email “you’ll be sorry”, something we hear all the time. The Guardian has issued a statement,

‘The Guardian does not and has not authorised phone hacking.’

Are they claiming then that David Leigh is the lone rogue reporter, like news International said of Clive Goodman?.........

Data from the Information Commissioner’s “Operation Motorman” shows that the Guardian Media Group paid tens of thousands of pounds to private detectives to illegally procure private information. The very same private detectives employed by News International…
UNQUOTE
The Guardian is morally superior to the rest of us. It loathes English plebian swine who read The Sun while welcoming all those nice darkies from Jamaica/Sri Lanka/wherever as cheap servants - so good with the children/ doing the gardening, my dear.

 

 

Police Propaganda Boss Suspended For Misconduct With The News Of The Screws [ 11 August 2011 ]
QUOTE
Scotland Yard suffered yet another blow last night as its director of communications was sent home on 'extended leave' over the phone hacking scandal. Dick Fedorcio has to prepare for an independent inquiry into an allegation of gross misconduct over his relationship with ex-News of the World deputy editor Neil Wallis. He faces accusations over a £24,000 two-day-a-week PR contract he handed to the phone hacking suspect.
UNQUOTE
There are police who were taking backhanders/bribes/brown envelopes/sweeteners/bungs which is open and shut crime. They are all keeping very quiet about the perpetrators.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/21/phone-hacking-operation-motorman-files
The net spreads. The Grauniad gloats.

 

Guardian Are Self Righteous Canting, Hacking Criminals [ 22 August 2011 ]
QUOTE
Regular readers will recall how Guido often wonders how it is the Guardian gets their hacking scoops. Well it turns out their rivals and the Met itself have been wondering the very same thing…

This recent exchange between the Times’ Sean O’Neill and the BBC’s Gaetan Portal, who both cover crime, reveals their suspicions:

  style="line-height: 19px;"> style="color: #999">
Gaetan Portal

@ @ when The Guardian ran the story on yesterday's arrest the press bureau knew nothing of it. #notverysubtle

Lo and behold today a 51 year old police officer, working on the phone-hacking inquiry named Operation Weeting, was arrested and suspended for leaking to the Guardian.  Given that David Leigh has already confessed to phone-hacking, the Guardian’s squeaky clean reputation is collapsing at a rapid speed.  Was this blatant corruption of police integrity sanctioned?....... Guido looks forward to Rusbridger’s imminent statement on what he knew and when…
UNQUOTE
The Guardian was being very nasty about Rupert Murdoch and the  News Of The World. Now it is getting coy about its own track record. People who live in glass houses should not throw stones. More at Phone hacking investigation detective arrested 'for leaking information to the Guardian'

 

 Journalist Arrested In News of the World Hacking Probe While Police Who Took Bribes Walk Free [ 4 September 2011 ]
QUOTE
A journalist has become the 15th suspect arrested on suspicion of phone hacking at the News of the World, it was reported today. The 34-year-old was held after attending a north London police station by appointment, shortly after noon. He is also being questioned on suspicion of attempting to pervert the course of justice. The latest development comes just days after the axed Sunday tabloid's former managing editor Stuart Kuttner, 71, was rearrested as part of the long-running investigation...........

The scandal which brought down the News of the World after 168 years has claimed a string of high-profile scalps, with Met Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson and Assistant Commissioner John Yates resigning within 24 hours of each other amid growing pressure.
UNQUOTE
Police resign so that they cannot be done using the Police Conduct Code. It is an effective way of getting away with more or less criminal behaviour. Honest men are different. They do not have the Get Out Jail Free card or friends on the inside unless they know politicians with power. It has not helped Murdoch this time though.

 

Grauniad Gloats [ 2 November 2011 ]
QUOTE
A summary of the day's events:
• News International was advised by legal counsel as far back as 2008 that there was "overwhelming evidence" that at "a number of senior journalists" at the News of the World were involved in phone-hacking.

• Michael Silverleaf, QC, told the publisher there was "a powerful case" that a "culture of illegal information access" existed on the paper and this would be "extremely damaging" to the "company's public reputation" if this got out in a court case.

• The News of the World's chief lawyer Tom Crone privately told the paper's editor as long ago as 2008 that a "damning email" existed showing that the tabloid made use of "extremely private voicemails" left on the telephone of football boss Gordon Taylor in 2008

• Taylor's lawyers had obtained evidence that "at least three journalists" on the paper were "intimately involved" in Glenn Mulcaire's illegal researching.

• Crone described the evidence as "fatal to our case" in a memo to ex editor Colin Myler ahead of a meeting with James Murdoch to discuss whether to settle Taylor's claim. He said the company's position was "perilous".
UNQUOTE
We are all keeping very quiet about bunging the filth.

 

What Newspapers Paid Just One Investigator [ 30 March 2012 ]
QUOTE
A detailed look at what each national newspaper paid private investigator Steve Whittamore for data about celebrities, politicians and ordinary members of the public.
DAILY MAIL (INCLUDING WEEKEND MAGAZINE): SPENT £143,150 ON 1,728 REQUESTS

MAIL ON SUNDAY (INCLUDING NIGHT AND DAY MAGAZINE): SPENT £62,025 ON 578 REQUESTS.......
EVENING STANDARD: SPENT £29,598 ON 196 REQUESTS
PEOPLE/SUNDAY PEOPLE: SPENT £76,295 ON 1,016 REQUESTS
MIRROR (INCLUDING MAGAZINE): SPENT £92,081 ON 984 REQUESTS
SUNDAY MIRROR (INCLUDING MAGAZINE): SPENT £27,807 ON 151 REQUESTS..........
OBSERVER: SPENT £13,270 ON 201 REQUESTS
UNQUOTE
The News Of The World owned by naughty Rupert paid a lot less than others. The Guardian paid nothing to this fellow.  They must have their own man. They are all keeping very quiet about  the policemen who took the bribes.

 

Police Took £5,000 Bribes From Murdoch, Hunt Was Told [ 14 May 2012 ]
QUOTE
Ex-News International chauffeur delivered '£5,000 bungs' - and will now send report to Leveson inquiry
Embattled Minister alerted Chief Constable after extraordinary tip-off
The controversy over Jeremy Hunt’s dealings with Rupert Murdoch’s empire took a bizarre twist last night after it emerged he held a meeting with one of the mogul’s former drivers to discuss his alleged role in illegal payments to police........... Mr. Maley told Mr. Hunt during the meeting last September that he handed more than a dozen packages containing cash to police officers while working for the company.

He also told Mr. Hunt [ a politician ] that his lawyers had a ‘black book’, which had been held by News International drivers and contained the names of the allegedly corrupt officers. He said it was being kept under ‘lock and key’ in a secret location. Mr. Maley claimed in the meeting that since passing his information to the police he had become the target of a ‘campaign of intimidation’ designed to deter him from  identifying the officers who took the payments – including threatening phone calls, damage to his car and even dog excrement posted through his letterbox........... Between 2006 and 2007 Mr. Maley alleges that he delivered a total of 17 packages containing cash to ten police officers stationed around London.
UNQUOTE
The coverage of the   News Of The World business has fingered people paying bribes but gone very easy on the criminals taking the money. Sir Robert Mark was the Met commissioner who said: "A good police force, is one that catches more criminals than it employs." He was the last one who showed any real interest in sorting out corruption. That was back in 1972. A lot of tax free money has passed that way since.

 

News Of The World Editors Were Fornicating With Each Other [ 1 November 2013 ]
QUOTE
Phone hacking trial: Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson 'had six-year affair'
Letter found on Rebekah Brooks' computer revealed that she was in a relationship with Andy Coulson between 1998 and 2004 at least, jury told........

The two former editors of the News of the World were involved in a relationship between 1998 and 2004 at least, the jury was told. The affair was uncovered when police searched Mrs. Brooks' house after reopening their phone hacking investigation in 2011 and found on a computer a letter she had written to Mr. Coulson in February 2004 after he broke off the romance.

Andrew Edis QC, prosecuting, said the letter supported allegations that the pair were involved in a conspiracy to hack phones while working at The News of the World between 2000 and 2006.........

The jury was shown emails, telephone records and notes closely linking Mr. Mulcaire and Ian Edmondson, a former News of the World head of news, around the time that Lord Freddie Windsor and the former Labour Cabinet minister Tessa Jowell and her husband David Mills [ who was convicted of thieving - Editor ] were targeted............

Mrs. Brooks, 45, who edited The News of the World and The Sun before being promoted to chief executive of Rupert Murdoch's News International, is accused of conspiracy to intercept voicemails, conspiracy to cause Misconduct In Public Office and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

Mr. Coulson, 45, who later became Prime Minister David Cameron's director of communications, is facing charges related to phone hacking and to alleged corrupt payments.
UNQUOTE
There is no mention of the police who accepted bribes to provide information. Business as normal, corruption as normal. Running the News Of The World was one way of keeping your name out of the papers.

 

World's End Shouldn't Cost Freedom of the Press - Guido Fawkes  [ 10 July 2011 ]
Guido has read the News of the World since he was a paperboy in West London over 30 years ago. Those who don’t read it think “The Screws” is all titillation, randy vicars and soap stars. It is that and also great popular campaigning journalism at its best, reflecting the concerns of people other than Islington Indy readers.

Politicians, the corrupt and evil feared it, today is a good day for them. Unfortunately when the drive to get the story crossed over into illegally hacking the phones of victims of tragedies, the good guys became bad guys. It has always been the case that the best stories often have a dubious legal provenance involving deception, subterfuge or law breaking, that is done to get at the truth that wrongdoers are hiding. Investigative journalists everywhere, including this blog, do it because it is the only way to get the truth. Using the dark arts to sell more newspapers with ghoulish tales is, as many have said, disgusting and unacceptable.

Momentum is building for press regulation, politicians of all parties are keen to tame the feral press. Public opinion is shifting towards them. This would be a mistake. The rich and the powerful in this country would like nothing better than to have a craven and beholden press. In many countries this is exactly what they have and ordinary people are worse off for it. Privacy laws are a Trojan horse for censorship.

Privacy from intrusion by the state or journalists who break the law by stealing photographs, hacking, climbing over the wall into your back garden, that should be protected. Privacy laws should not be a means to hide embarrassment for those who can afford to hire Schillings. That way lies an untouchable ruling elite.

In the end Murdoch closed the News of the World because he feared an advertiser and consumer boycott (plus to try take the heat off the Sky takeover). If you disapprove of a newspaper don’t buy and read it. That is simply the most powerful restraint you have on newspaper proprietors in a free democracy. Even Rupert Murdoch fears his customers.

Restrictive press laws will be circumvented in the borderless internet age, however Guido would rather not have to try to expensively fight the good fight from permanently offshore. Meantime Guido wishes both his friends and enemies at The Screws the best of luck for the future.  Oh, and thanks for paying the kids’ school fees.

 

 

 

Errors & omissions, broken links, cock ups, over-emphasis, malice [ real or imaginary ] or whatever; if you find any I am open to comment.

Email me at Mike Emery. All financial contributions are cheerfully accepted. If you want to keep it private, use my PGP key.  Home

Updated  on Thursday, 21 April 2022 14:36:12

 

 

Errors & omissions, broken links, cock ups, over-emphasis, malice [ real or imaginary ] or whatever; if you find any I am open to comment.

Email me at Mike Emery. All financial contributions are cheerfully accepted. If you want to keep it private, use my PGP key.  Home

Updated  on Thursday, 21 April 2022 14:36:12