Rep. Charlie Dent (R-PA) was taken to task by his constituents. At about 2:56 in the video, this from one of them: CONSTITUENT: You guys are protecting your sacred cows. Your oil company subsidies, everybody understands that. Just take ‘em, they don’t need them. The tax cuts for the extremely wealthy, they’re doing great, they don’t need them. You can’t come to us and say, ‘We’re going to take your Medicare away because we don’t think it’s working for you.’ That’s why your boys [Republican leadership] are walking out of the room. They say take these off the table. Tell Mr. Cantor to put them back on the table. Those whines you hear are the sacred cows screaming. [h/t Think Progress ]
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Jeremy Hunt announces £55m scheme to help arts organisations build American-style endowment funds The culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has announced a £55m scheme to help and encourage arts organisations to build up endowment funds from private money rather than being too reliant on public subsidy. Hunt has put former Conservative miniter Michael Portillo in charge of the scheme, which will see organisations competing for around 50 grants of between £500,000 and £5m to match the money they raise from private sources. Driving up philanthropic giving to the arts and creating more US-style endowment funds is one of Hunt’s centrepiece cultural policies. In a speech at the Whitechapel Gallery in east London he said: “It took the Met in New York over 100 years to build up their £2bn endowment. I want our endowments century to start today.” Hunt accepted that many arts organisations were fragile. “They are led by talented, passionate people who rightly think that great art matters more than great money. Yet without financial security, fragility becomes vulnerability – and great art can sometimes wither on the vine.” The scheme is part of a £100m pot of money to boost philanthropy which includes £50m from Arts Council England, £30m from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and £20m from the Heritage Lottery Fund. Last week, the Arts Council announced its £40m philanthropy scheme, Catalyst Arts, which aims to make sure organisations have the skills, time and tools to raise private money. The new “endowment fund” scheme will require organisations to raise, on average, £2 from private sources for every £1 they get from public money. That means the £55m scheme aims to unlock £110m from private sources. Hunt said it was all about arts organisations becoming more stable and not being reliant on one source of money. Applications for the money will open in October, with decisions expected early next year. Alan Davey, the Arts Council’s chief executive, welcomed the announcement, calling it “another important step in helping to make arts organisations more sustainable in the long term”. The speech came on the day the Guardian revealed that Nicolas Kent, the artistic director at London’s Tricycle theatre for 27 years, was standing down because of arts cuts . He said philanthropy was not a panacea for the arts and proved very difficult to attract for the type of work the Tricycle specialised in, such as political theatre and black and Asian theatre. Hunt said the Tricycle’s 11% cut in Arts Council funding was a lot less than many organisations in the public sector were going through. But he added: “I don’t want to pretend it’s easy for anyone. Nor do I think that philanthropy is going to plug the gap in every case and that’s why it is really important that we have public funding. It’s really important that we have a mixed economy in the arts.” Arts funding Jeremy Hunt Philanthropy Mark Brown guardian.co.uk
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Sir George Young announces reaction to controversial legal ruling that time spent on police bail counted towards the 96-hour limit of pre-charge detention Emergency legislation to reverse a controversial legal ruling on police bail will go through all stages in the Commons on Thursday. The leader of the House, Sir George Young, said peers would then consider the police detention and bail bill early next week. The move to rush through new laws comes after ministers told MPs that waiting for the results of an appeal to the supreme court would take too long. The initial ruling, made by a district judge and backed by a judicial review at the high court, means officers can no longer bail suspects for more than four days without either charging or releasing them. Young’s announcement came as three supreme court justices were considering an application from Greater Manchester police (GMP) to stay the judgment pending a full appeal at the same court on 25 July. The row started when district judge Jonathan Finestein, sitting at Salford magistrates court, refused a routine application from GMP for a warrant of further detention of murder suspect Paul Hookway on 5 April. High court judge Mr Justice McCombe confirmed the ruling in a judicial review on 19 May, which meant time spent on police bail counted towards the maximum 96-hour limit of pre-charge detention. For the past 25 years, police and the courts have only counted the time spent being questioned or in police custody towards the limit, with many suspects being released on bail for months before being called back for further interviews. The shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, claimed it had led to police failing to arrest domestic violence suspects who breached bail conditions, leaving alleged victims vulnerable. The Home Office has been criticised for not acting sooner to reverse the ruling but the home secretary, Theresa May, told police chiefs: “There is a clear need to act fast to make sure we put things right for the police.” Policing minister Nick Herbert announced that emergency legislation would be used an hour after receiving legal advice from the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), she said. “There is no question that I will always give the police the tools and powers they need to catch criminals, investigate crimes and protect the public,” May said. Herbert admitted last week that officials were told of the oral judgment in May, but its full impact only became clear when the written judgment was handed down on 17 June and ministers were alerted on 24 June. Sir Norman Bettison, the chief constable of West Yorkshire police, highlighted the problems the ruling caused his officers last week, saying they were left “running round like headless chickens … wondering what this means to the nature of justice”. About 85,200 people are on bail in England and Wales at any one time and the common practice in most major inquiries of releasing suspects on bail and calling them back for questioning weeks later was “pretty much a dead duck” after the ruling, police chiefs said. UK criminal justice George Young Police Crime Theresa May UK supreme court Yvette Cooper guardian.co.uk
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Inventory of weapons put beyond use by paramilitaries during peace process will not be made public, says disarmament body The inventory of every gun, bullet, rocket launcher, grenade and explosive put beyond use by the IRA and loyalist paramilitaries will not be made public, the body that oversaw the disarmament process in Northern Ireland has said. In the final report of the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning , it said files on the weapons and explosives decommissioned by the paramilitary organisations will instead be held by the US state department in Washington. The commission said part of the reason behind its decision was to avoid discouraging future acts of decommissioning by other terror groups in Ireland. This would include those anti-ceasefire republicans such as the Real IRA who are still engaged in “armed struggle”. The final report published on Monday by the Irish and British governments reflects on the body’s work since it was established in 1997 to facilitate the destruction of weapons and explosives belonging to paramilitary organisations on ceasefire. It provides an account of decommissioning events and a summary of key factors that enabled the commission to deliver its objectives, and highlights the lessons learnt. In a statement, Northern Ireland’s secretary of state, Owen Paterson, said the commission’s task had been difficult and that the commissioners had worked tirelessly to achieve their goal. With the acts of decommissioning secured they had contributed to making the North a more peaceful and stable society, he added. Paterson admitted that despite the destruction of paramilitary arms some organisations still posed a threat. He said: “As the IMC themselves note, while the commission has completed its remit, the security position In Northern Ireland is far from ideal. As the violence in a part of east Belfast recently revealed, there remain those who have rejected peace and politics and who actively work to undermine it. “The government remains committed to doing all it can to end violence and to enable all the people of Northern Ireland to live peacefully and safely as is their right. I am conscious that parliament and the public will wish to be kept informed of progress on a regular basis. I therefore intend to make statements to parliament every six months summarising the threat, in keeping with the timescales on which the IMC used to issue its reports.” Northern Ireland Ireland Europe UK security and terrorism IRA Henry McDonald guardian.co.uk
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Tristane Banon’s lawyer says she will file lawsuit centred on alleged behaviour of Dominique Strauss-Kahn in 2002 interview A French writer who claims she was sexually assaulted by Dominique Strauss-Kahn is to file a lawsuit on Tuesday against him for attempted rape. Tristane Banon’s lawyer said the legal proceedings would centre on the behaviour of the former head of the International Monetary Fund when she went to interview him in 2002. Banon, who was 22 at the time, later spoke about the alleged assault on French television and described Strauss-Kahn, then a leading member of France’s Socialist party, as acting like a “rutting chimpanzee”. Strauss-Kahn’s name was censored out of the broadcast. The alleged incident went largely unreported in France until Strauss-Kahn was arrested in New York in May and accused of sexually assaulting and attempting to rape a hotel chambermaid. The 62-year-old politician, who had been widely tipped to become the next French president, denied the charges. His passport was confiscated and he was put under virtual house arrest by a US judge. After questions were raised about the credibility of evidence given by the chambermaid, Strauss-Kahn was released without bail on Friday, but his passport was not returned. The apparent collapse of the case against him has led some colleagues to suggest he could make a political comeback in France. David Koubbi, Banon’s lawyer, had previously said she would not make any official complaint in France until the US case had been resolved, as she did not want to be forced to give evidence in the US. Koubbi said Banon would not respond to an appeal by the chambermaid’s lawyer to testify. Although the writer and journalist was said to be deeply disturbed after the alleged attack by Strauss-Kahn in a Paris flat, she was reportedly dissuaded from taking legal action by her mother, Anne Mansouret, who is a local councillor for his Socialist party. Mansouret later admitted she regretted talking her daughter out of making a complaint. “Tristane Banon will file a complaint Tuesday for attempted rape in Paris,” Koubbi said. “These acts are extremely serious. These events were combined with a violence that was absolutely striking for these kinds of situations.” Koubbi would not say whether the timing was affected by developments in New York. Under French law, attempted rape charges can be brought up to 10 years after an alleged attack, whereas sexual assault charges expire after three years. In the television programme, broadcast in 2007, Banon accused Strauss-Kahn of leaping on her, wrenching open her bra and trying to unbutton her jeans. The writer, who was a close friend of Strauss-Kahn’s daughter Camille, said she was forced to fight him off. “It finished badly … very violently … I kicked him,” she said. “When we were fighting, I mentioned the word rape to make him afraid, but it didn’t have any effect. I managed to get out.” Explaining why she had not pressed charges, Banon said “I didn’t want to be known to the end of my days as the girl who had a problem with the politician.” Mansouret told journalists she regretted having dissuaded her daughter from legal action, but had done so because she believed Strauss-Kahn’s behaviour had been out of character and because of close links with his family. Strauss-Kahn’s second wife was Banon’s godmother. She said he was “an otherwise warm, sympathetic and extremely talented man”, but the attack had left her daughter depressed and traumatised. “My daughter, despite the passing years, is still shocked by these facts. Her life was completely upset by this affair and she was depressed for a long time.” Before Koubbi’s announcement, France was divided on whether it wanted Strauss-Kahn back in public life. A poll released on Monday found that 51% of French people thought Strauss-Kahn no longer had a political future, versus 42% who thought he did. Another poll published on Sunday in Le Parisien showed 49% wanted Strauss-Kahn to return to French politics. Dominique Strauss-Kahn France Europe Kim Willsher guardian.co.uk
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• Deleted voicemails gave family false hope • Hacking interfered with police hunt • Family lawyer: actions ‘heinous and despicable’ 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. Milly Dowler Phone hacking News of the World Newspapers & magazines National newspapers Newspapers Crime Rebekah Brooks Privacy & the media Privacy Andy Coulson News Corporation News International Nick Davies Amelia Hill guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …• Deleted voicemails gave family false hope • Hacking interfered with police hunt • Family lawyer: actions ‘heinous and despicable’ 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. Milly Dowler Phone hacking News of the World Newspapers & magazines National newspapers Newspapers Crime Rebekah Brooks Privacy & the media Privacy Andy Coulson News Corporation News International Nick Davies Amelia Hill guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …• Deleted voicemails gave family false hope • Hacking interfered with police hunt • Family lawyer: actions ‘heinous and despicable’ 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. Milly Dowler Phone hacking News of the World Newspapers & magazines National newspapers Newspapers Crime Rebekah Brooks Privacy & the media Privacy Andy Coulson News Corporation News International Nick Davies Amelia Hill guardian.co.uk
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enlarge Some good advice! I wonder if CNN management is smart enough to take it: CNN’s Fareed Zakaria said that the network he works for shouldn’t try to get viewers of Fox News to watch it—because they won’t. Zakaria spoke to NPR correspondent David Folkenflik on Friday for a profile of CNN and its relatively new managing editor, Mark Whitaker. The piece emphasizes Whitaker’s attempts to bring more reportorial depth to the network, and Zakaria said that the efforts are working. “CNN is getting smarter, and you can feel it in the stories,” Zakaria said. “You can feel it in the depth with which they’re covered, the kinds of people in terms of guests who are brought on air, the ways in which issues are discussed.” He then said that CNN shouldn’t even be trying to compete with Fox News. “The people who watch Fox are not going to watch CNN. Let’s be honest,” Zakaria said. “Our competitors should properly be The New York Times, the BBC and NPR.”
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