'No police action' on phone hack claims
Updated on 09 July 2009
As David Cameron defends Tory party communications director Andy Coulson, Scotland Yard's assistant commissioner, John Yates, announces there will be "no further investigation" of allegations of phone tapping by the News of the World.
Assistant Commissioner Yates went on to say that detectives had found no evidence that former deputy prime minister John Prescott's phone was tapped.
Claims of illegal phone tapping by the News of the World have led to calls for the Conservative leader, David Cameron, to sack his communications director, Andy Coulson, who was the editor of the News of the World at the time of the alleged hacking.
For now, the Tory leader is standing by his man. Speaking outside his home this morning, David Cameron said: "It is wrong for newspapers to breach people's privacy without justification. That is why Andy Coulson resigned from the News of the World two and a half years ago.
"Of course, I knew about that resignation when I gave him a job. But I believe in giving people a second chance, and as the director of communications he does an excellent job for the Conservative party and behaves properly and in an upright way in everything that he does."
Mr Cameron also confirmed that Mr Coulson's job was "safe".
More prosecutions?
Publicist Max Clifford is one of those alleged to have been hacked. He said that the police did tell him that his phone was being tapped, after his mobile phone provider first alerted him.
He added that there are very serious issues to be investigated about tabloid journalists, the Press Complaints Commission and the Metropolitan Police.
"I would be astonished if there aren't more prosecutions [of journalists]," he told Channel 4 News. "According to the Guardian allegations today there were several people in and around the News of the World newsdesk that were aware, involved with this, and there were two or three thousand people that had been targeted."
"If the Guardian allegations are true, then I think it is going to take an awful lot of explaining away by Andy Coulson."
Mr Coulson resigned from the News of the World after royal editor Clive Goodman was sentenced to four months in prison in January 2007 for plotting to hack into telephone messages belonging to royal aides. Coulson and News International executives said they had had no knowledge of Goodman's activities.
The Guardian claimed News Group Newspapers, which publishes titles including the News of the World, had paid out more than £1m to settle cases that threatened to reveal evidence of its journalists' alleged involvement in telephone hacking.
'Thousands' of targets
MPs from all three parties, including former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott and Cabinet minister Tessa Jowell, were among the targets of the alleged phone taps, The Guardian said.
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 Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Footballers Association, the newspaper said.
In the Goodman trial, Mr Taylor was revealed as one of the public figures whose phone messages were illegally intercepted by private investigator Glenn Mulcaire.
Mr Coulson said last night: "This story relates to an alleged payment made after I left the News of the World two and half years ago.
"I have no knowledge whatsoever of any settlement with Gordon Taylor.
"The Mulcaire case was investigated thoroughly by the police and by the Press Complaints Commission. I took full responsibility at the time for what happened on my watch but without my knowledge and resigned."
Former home secretary Charles Clarke joined the voices calling for Mr Coulson to be dismissed, with MPs demanding answers in parliament this morning.
"David Cameron has to decide whether he is Mr Clean in British politics or Mr Fouled," Mr Clarke told Channel 4 News. "Andy Coulson, as editor of the News of the World, is absolutely implicated in the story revealed by the Guardian today.
"They are the kind of practices that should have nothing to do with modern politics and modern media. David Cameron should sack Andy Coulson immediately."
'Fewer scoops, but fewer breaches'
Legal expert Joshua Rozenberg explained that the police may have passed information about phone hacking to the Crown Prosecution Service, who may have decided not to charge more journalists.
"They might have thought it wasn't in the public interest or perhaps there wasn't enough evidence to charge any more people with these serious criminal offenses," he said.
"I suppose the newspaper did what they did, and it wasn't just the News of the World, because they thought that was how they should operate to get stories, that the public wanted them to find out information that they wouldn't be able to find out by other means.
"I think the public is much more concerned about privacy, they are aware that under human rights law, everyone is entitled to respect for their private and family life. I think this will mean fewer scoops in the newspapers, but I think it will mean fewer breaches of people's personal privacy."
