Interesting memo.This seems to reveal the desperation Rebekah Brooks felt as her Empire at the News of the World crumbled after the Milly Dowler hacking disclosure by The Guardian.
Day 54, Part 2:
Rebekah Brooks wanted to blame News International’s former chairman Les Hinton and the News of the World’s editor Colin Myler for the phone hacking scandal, according to a document disclosed today.
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This comes as complete bombshell and given recent tensions between Murdoch and Blair – it shows how close Rebekah Brooks thought she was to Tony Blair at the time. Blair’s office has dismissed this as informal advice!
Day 54, Part 1:
Tony Blair was privately advising Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers on the phone hacking scandal days after learning its best-selling Sunday title, the News of the World, had intercepted the messages of a missing girl, the Old Bailey heard today.
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An amazing insight into insider wheeler dealing when you are facing a legal suit from a very powerful figure
Day 52, Part 2: Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper group considered dispatching one of his favourite executives with a bundle of cash to settle a lawsuit for phone hacking, the Old Bailey heard today.
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An extraordinary statistic from the Metropolitan Police. If correct it shows a truly industrial hacking operation.
Day 52: News International staff or contractors made more than 6,000 calls to voicemail inboxes before police smashed the phone hacking operation at the News of the World, the phone hacking trial heard today.
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The disclosure about fiddling expenses does indeed happen. The question is did the story come from a source or hacking or both?
Day 50, Part 1: A former News of the World reporter insisted today that Andy Coulson had hired him to hack phones. Dan Evans said he had told Mr Coulson, then the NoW’s editor, about his skills in voicemail interception during a job interview at a London hotel.
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Dan Evans admits ” flawed recollection” as Andy Coulson’s lawyer demolishes the detail of his evidence – but he insists the encounter over hacking with Coulson took place even if it was a different day.
Day 49, Part 2: A long-serving News of the World reporter has admitted making mistakes in his allegations about Andy Coulson’s involvement in phone hacking. At the start of his four-day testimony this week and in his police statement, Dan Evans said he had played the message left by Sienna Miller to Mr Coulson and another journalist at the NoW’s offices in Wapping on Tuesday 27 September 2005.
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More interesting stuff about bad journalism including making up quotes as Dan Evans faces a tough cross examination about his evidence.
Day 49, Part 1: Journalists on the News of the World often made up quotes for publication in stories, former NoTW reporter Dan Evans told the phone hacking trial today. Asked about comments from “friends” of Sienna Miller in a NoTW story, Evans said that it might come as a shock to the court but not everything in a tabloid newspaper was the “nailed-on” truth.
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This is tragic as well as scandalous. A journalist who says he is employed to illegally hack people in desperation to get a scoop. ends up drinking and taking cocaine. Sad reflection on the fate of some people in our profession.
Day 48, Part 2: A phone-hacking journalist told the Old Bailey today that he became so depressed at the News of the World that he “self-medicated” with cocaine. Giving evidence at the phone hacking trial, Dan Evans estimated that while at the NoTW he used cocaine “every couple of weeks.”
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Dan Evans’ admission that he lied in a witness statement about hacking a News of the World target in a previous breach of privacy claim is very interesting. Particularly when he claims in reply to cross examination from Andy Coulson’s QC that he had been caught up in an ” enormous conspiracy” to hide the truth that the News of the World was engaged in large scale phone hacking.
Day 48, Part 1: Self-confessed phone hacker Dan Evans admitted lying when he was giving evidence to a court about his attempted voicemail interception of a News of the World target, the Old Bailey heard today.
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This extraordinary evidence from Dan Evans, who worked for the Sunday Mirror and News of the World dramatically changes the atmosphere . He alleges that phone hacking was rife at both the News of the World and Sunday Mirror – dragging the Trinity Mirror group into the hacking scandal alongside the Rupert Murdoch empire.
Day 46, Part 2: Phone hacking was rife at the Sunday Mirror and the News of the World and senior journalists were fully aware of the practice, a phone hacking ‘supergrass’ told the Old Bailey today.
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Westminster Confidential 