News of the World 'phone hacking' dismissed
Updated on 09 November 2009
Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger tells Channel 4 News "This is a very dangerous day for the press" as the PCC dismisses phone tap allegations against the News of the World.
After reviewing the evidence, the PCC has said that despite the claims, there were no signs of tapping by journalists at the News of the World.
The Guardian sparked a political storm in July after claiming that News Group Newspapers, which publishes the News of the World, had paid out to victims of alleged phone hacking.
The PCC report concluded: "Despite the manner in which the Guardian's allegations were treated in some quarters - as if they related to current or recent activity - there is no evidence that the practice of phone message tapping is ongoing.
"The Commission is satisfied that - so far as it is possible to tell - its work aimed at improving the integrity of undercover journalism has played its part in raising standards in this area."
The Guardian branded the PCC's findings "complacent", saying the watchdog "does not have the ability, the budget or the procedures to conduct its own investigations".
The editor of the Guardian, Alan Rusbridger, told Channel 4 News -
"We don’t know (about the scale of the alleged phone tapping) – the PCC has made no real efforts to find out.
"What we do know, and no-one has contested – not even the News of the World – is that at least two other journalists, probably three, at the News of the World, other than we knew about before, were involved because they were the people who transcribed the telephone messages of Gordon Taylor, the chief executive of the Professional Footballers Association.
"The police have warned top figures in the military, government and police that their phones may have been tapped. We know of one cabinet minister who has been told that her phone was tapped.
"So this is not in doubt, but no-one knows who was doing the tapping."
And he went on: "The PCC has no investigatory powers, so this questions whether the PCC is really a regulator.
"So what it's done is to write to the News of the World and say, 'Can you tell us anything?' News of the World have written back saying no, and the PCC have essentially said, 'Well, we’ve got all these people who talk off the record. We can’t get at the facts, so we have to accept that there’s nothing going wrong.'"”
"There was no inquiry, really. Their inquiry extended no further than writing to the current editor of the News of the World – who wasn’t there at the time – and saying, 'Can you tell us anything?'
"When he said 'There's nothing I can tell you', they didn't speak to the previous editor of the News of the World, they didn't ask any of the people we know about in the News of the World who were named in documents.
"So essentially there's been no inquiry, and on the basis of that they've said 'We can't make any findings.'
"The great worry for me, and somebody who believes in self-regulation, is that since 1966 when it became apparent that there was widespread use of private detectives, the only people who have inquired have been the police, have been MPs, have been lawyers and journalists. The PCC has found out nothing.
"And so this absolutely plays into the hands of people who say that the PCC is a completely toothless watchdog, because it doesn't find out anything, it doesn’t do anything.
"I want self-regulation to work. But this is a very dangerous day for the press because this is really a very lightweight report."
Clive Goodman, the News of the World's former royal editor, and investigator Glenn Mulcaire were sent to prison in 2007 for plotting to access royal aides' voicemails, prompting Goodman to be sacked.
The watchdog's latest inquiry focused on whether it was misled by the News of the World during its investigation into the original scandal and whether there was any evidence that phone message hacking had been ongoing since 2007.
The PCC said the Guardian was "performing a perfectly legitimate function in further scrutinising activity at the paper, and it had produced one new significant fact in its revelation that the News of the World had privately settled a legal action brought by Professional Footballers' Association chief Gordon Taylor for a large amount of money."
But the report added: "The PCC has seen no new evidence to suggest that the practice of phone message tapping was undertaken by others beyond Goodman and Mulcaire, or evidence that News of the World executives knew about Goodman and Mulcaire's activities."
A host of inquiries were launched after the Guardian claimed MPs from all three parties, including former deputy prime minister John Prescott and Cabinet minister Tessa Jowell were among the targets of alleged phone taps.
It quoted sources saying police officers found evidence of News Group staff using private investigators who had hacked into "thousands" of mobile phones.
One of the settlements, totalling £700,000 in legal costs and damages, involved legal action brought by Mr Taylor, the newspaper said.
