Questions over new phone hacking evidence
Updated on 09 September 2010
A former News of the World journalist who has said that Andy Coulson would have had knowledge of a phone hacking culture left his post at the paper two years before David Cameron's communications chief became editor.
Paul McMullan, former News of the World deputy features editor, told the Guardian newspaper this morning that David Cameron's communications chief "would certainly be well aware that the practice was pretty widespread," and the paper reported that Paul McMullan "claims that phone-hacking and other illegal reporting techniques were rife at the tabloid while... Andy Coulson was deputy editor and then editor of the paper."
In fact Paul McMullan only overlapped with Mr Coulson for 18 months, while Mr Coulson was deputy editor.
Coulson joined the paper in May 2000 and Paul McMullan left in late 2001. He told the BBC's World at One that during that time phone hacking was widely used on the paper. The practice became illegal in July 2000.
Mr McMullan's departure from the paper before Mr Coulson's promotion raises questions about whether his evidence can shed any light on the period when Mr Coulson was editor, as The Guardian report claimed.
Fleet Street journalists, including those who worked for the News of the World, were summoned to attend seminars on the illegality of phone hacking by the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) and police in 2003 - the same year Mr Coulson became editor at the NoW.
Channel 4 News contacted Mr McMullan to ask how reporters would not have known about the illegality of phone hacking in lieu of having attended the seminars. Mr McMullan replied: "I don't know, I left two years before then."
Today the News of the World issued a statement saying it would launch an internal investigation into the allegations.
It read: "This matter, which largely relates to alleged behaviour five years ago, has become intensely partisan.
"Amidst a swirl of untethered allegations, there should be no doubt that the News of the World will investigate any allegation of wrongdoing when presented with evidence.
"As we have always made clear, we have a zero-tolerance approach to wrongdoing and will take swift and decisive action if we have proof."
This evening the Guardian said that it "reported correctly, that Mr Coulson arrived as deputy editor at the News of the World in 2000, and for 18 months worked alongside and in charge of Mr McMullan, who was deputy features editor at the time. Mr McMullan was therefore definitely in position to know what Mr Coulson's involvement was over phone hacking."
Commons debate on hacking
Today MPs unanimously backed a call for the Commons standards and privileges committee to launch an investigation into phone hacking at an emergency debate today, amid fresh allegations that their messages had been intercepted by paper.
The row began in 2007, when ex-royal editor Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire were jailed for hacking into voicemail boxes and listening to messages left for public figures.
But it resurfaced last week when another former reporter claimed that Mr Coulson had been aware of the illegal intercepting, an allegation he denies.
MPs agreed to refer the matter to the powerful cross-party Commons Standards and Privileges Committee, chaired by Tory ex-cabinet minister Sir Malcolm Rifkind.
