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Tag: news of the world
Former Aide To British Prime Minister To Be Retried On Bribery Charge

Former Aide To British Prime Minister To Be Retried On Bribery Charge

By Henry Chu, Los Angeles Times

LONDON — A former top aide to Prime Minister David Cameron, already convicted of conspiring to hack into private cellphones, is to be retried on bribery charges, prosecutors said Monday.
Andy Coulson will face a jury again to defend himself from allegations that, as editor of one of Britain’s most notorious tabloids, he and a reporter paid police officers for a phone directory of the royal household. The first jury was unable to agree on a verdict on those charges last week, resulting in a mistrial.

But the panel did find Coulson guilty of conspiring to tap into private cellphone messages. Investigators say that journalists at the News of the World, before and during Coulson’s tenure as editor, hacked into the phones of hundreds of people in order to land scoops and discover details of the private lives of celebrities, politicians, and even crime victims.

Coulson, 46, faces sentencing for that conviction later this week. He could spend up to two years in prison.

He was the only person convicted in a months-long trial of seven people accused of wrongdoing in the phone-hacking scandal. The defendants were variously accused of intercepting voicemail messages, paying public officials for information, and trying to thwart the police investigation into the allegations.

The most prominent of the seven on trial, Rebekah Brooks, Coulson’s predecessor as editor of the Rupert Murdoch-owned News of the World, was acquitted of all charges. Brooks, a close confidante of Murdoch’s, was forced to resign as head of his British newspaper empire when the scandal erupted three years ago upon revelations that the hacking victims included a 13-year-old kidnapped girl.

Coulson’s conviction is a major embarrassment for Cameron, the prime minister, who hired Coulson as his chief spin doctor. Cameron has apologized in Parliament for what he acknowledges was a bad decision, but insists that Coulson misled him about his record as editor of News of the World.

Cameron’s political foes have criticized him for bringing a criminal into the heart of 10 Downing St.

Coulson is to be retried on the bribery charge along with former reporter Clive Goodman, who has already served a prison term for hacking into the cellphones of aides to the royal family.
During the trial, Goodman admitted on the witness stand that he had hacked into the phones of Prince William and his wife, the former Kate Middleton, nearly 200 times.

AFP Photo / Justin Tallis

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Designer Accepts Damages Over Tabloid Hacking

LONDON (AP) — Interior designer Kelly Hoppen has accepted 60,000 pounds ($93,000) in damages for phone hacking from the publisher of the News of the World, lawyers for both sides said Friday.

Hoppen, former stepmother of actress Sienna Miller, is one of scores of people accusing the tabloid of eavesdropping on cell phone voicemails. Her case was due to go to court in January.

Her lawyer, Mark Thomson, told a preliminary hearing that the paper’s publisher had agreed to pay Hoppen the damages, plus legal costs.

He said that between 2004 and 2006, Hoppen was the subject of numerous articles in the paper “which contained intrusive and private information.”

“The claimant did not know the source of this information at the time of publication and often could not understand how it was possible for the News of the World to obtain such private information,” Thomson said.

He said police in February told Hoppen they had found evidence she had been targeted by the newspaper, an allegation the tabloid later admitted.

Michael Silverleaf, lawyer for the tabloid’s publisher, confirmed that “the parties have agreed to settle their differences” and offered a “sincere and unreserved apology” to Hoppen.

More than 60 people have filed court papers alleging their phones were hacked by the News of the World, which was shut down by owner Rupert Murdoch in July after evidence emerged that its reporters had eavesdropped on the telephone voice mail messages of Milly Dowler, a 13-year-old who disappeared in 2002 and was later found murdered.

The revelation — and mounting evidence that phone hacking was routine at the newspaper — shook Murdoch’s media empire, and sent tremors through Britain’s political, police and media establishments.

News Corp. Nixes Hacking Joke At Emmy Awards

Sunday night’s Emmy Awards broadcast had glitz, gowns, glamour… and censorship.

Alec Baldwin had planned to make a joke about News Corp.’s recent phone-hacking scandal during the awards show’s opening sketch. FOX, which is owned by News Corp., removed the joke from the previously recorded skit. A network spokeswoman said the decision was made because the company did not want to appear to be making light of the serious hacking allegations.

According to The New York Times, “In the skit, Mr. Baldwin played the ‘president of television.’ While on the phone with an unidentified colleague, he paused and said, ‘Rupert, is that you? I hear you breathing, Rupert!’ The chairman and chief executive of the News Corporation is Rupert Murdoch.”

News of the World, a British News Corp. paper, was shut down this summer following reports that the paper had illegally eavesdropped on several occasions, including hacking into the phones of celebrities and victims’ families. The investigation is ongoing.

After the network cut the joke, Baldwin pulled out of the skit altogether. The sketch was re-filmed without the hacking joke, and Star Trek veteran Leonard Nimoy took over the role. Baldwin did not attend the Emmys, saying he had a prior commitment and insisting that his decision was unrelated to the News Corp. incident.

30 Rock, the NBC comedy in which Baldwin plays a General Electric boss who meddles in a television show, often takes jabs at NBC and network politics. Apparently, Murdoch and Co. lack NBC’s sense of humor.

On Sunday night, Baldwin wrote on Twitter that he understood why News Corp. killed his joke: “If I were enmeshed in a scandal where I hacked phones of families of innocent crime victims purely for profit, I’d want that to go away too.”

Whether watching awards shows or singing along to “Glee,” it’s easy to forget that FOX is owned by News Corp. But even when it comes to entertainment, viewers should always be aware of what message the networks are sending– and what they aren’t letting others say.

Rebekah Brooks Gave Hacked Cell Phone to Murdered Girl’s Mother

Did Rebekah Brooks, disgraced former editor of Rupert Murdoch’s now-defunct British tabloid the News of the World, give a cell phone to the mother of a murder victim just so her voicemail could be hacked? That’s what new reports suggest.

Originally, British police told Sara Payne, whose daughter was murdered by a sex offender in a case extensively reported by the News of the World, that they did not believe her cell phone had been hacked, since they could not find her name or cell phone number in their database of hacking victims. But they recently undetook a more thorough investigation, which reveals that the News of the World hacked a cell phone that Brooks gave to Payne “as a gift” in order to “help her stay in touch with her supporters.”

The situation is embarrassing for Payne, who, believing she had never been hacked, spoke out in support of News of the World. In the last published issue of the paper, she compared the closing of the tabloid to “the passing of an old friend” and referred to its staff — including Brooks — as “my good and trusted friends.” Her trust appears to have been misplaced.

Brooks, along with her bosses James and Rupert Murdoch, testified last week before Parliament that she had no knowledge of the phone hacking scandal, which she blamed on untrustworthy subordinates. Earlier, she tried to deflect the phone hacking accusations by pointing to all the good work News of the World had done — most notably working with Payne to pass “Sarah’s Law,” a British version of the American “Megan’s Law,” which lets parents view the sex offender registry. In a memo to her staff, Brooks called the fight for Sarah’s Law “especially personal to me” and proudly declared that “the battle for better protection of children from paedophiles and better rights for the families and the victims of these crimes defined my editorships.”

Of course, it’s possible that Brooks did not know the cell phone would be hacked. She has already released a statement calling it “unthinkable” that she had any knowledge of the hacking. Maybe she was simply so incompetent that her staff and private investigators did not hesitate to hack Payne’s phone, even though it was a symbol of Brooks’ goodwill toward her sources. If not, though, it’s clear that she took advantage of a murder victim’s mother in her time of need. It’s also clear that she and the Murdochs blatantly lied to Parliament.