Phone hacking scandal

In 2006, reporters at the paper used private investigators to illegally gain access to hundreds of mobile phone voicemail accounts held by a variety of people of interest to the newspaper. In 2007 the paper's royal correspondent, Clive Goodman, pleaded guilty to illegal interception of personal communication and was jailed for four months; the paper's editor, Andy Coulson, had resigned two weeks earlier. In 2009/2010, further revelations emerged on the extent of the phone hacking, and how it was common knowledge within theNews of the World and its News International parent. According to a former reporter at the paper, "Everyone knew. The office cat knew," about the illegal activities used to scoop stories.^[36] On 17 January 2011, The Guardian reported that Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator paid by the paper, testified that he had been asked by the newspaper's leadership to hack voicemail accounts on its behalf.^[37] In April 2011, attorneys for the victims alleged that as many as 7,000 people had their phones hacked by the News of the World;^[38] it was further revealed that the paper's owner, Rupert Murdoch, had attempted to pressure Prime Minister Gordon Brown andLabour Party MPs to "back away" from investigating the scandal.^[39] Three journalists on the newspaper were initially arrested: Ian Edmondson and Neville Thurlbeck on 5 April^[40] and James Weatherup on 14 April.^[41] The newspaper "unreservedly" apologised for its phone hacking activities during April 2011.^[42] On 4 July 2011, it was disclosed that potential evidence had been deleted in spring 2002 from the hacked voicemail account of Milly Dowler, then missing, but later found to have been murdered