thx, for the good series of posts .. Murdoch is vicious .. hacking into the privacy of a family in that situation is illegal enough, the deletions from, Milly Dowler's, voicemail even more disgusting ..
Excellent comments re press ethics in yours from the man .. Evgeny Lebedev, appears a very different kind of guy ..
Evgeny Lebedev may soon be a major player in the British media, but what does anyone know about him? Jon Henley investigates the life of an oligarch's son
Jon Henley The Guardian, Friday 16 January 2009
Evgeny Lebedev at the raisa Gorbachev Foundation Gala fundraiser at Hampton Court Palace Photograph: Alan Davidson/Guardian
According to the Daily Mirror's 3am Girls, Evgeny "Don't Call Me an Oligarch" Lebedev was seen two summers ago at London's Serpentine Gallery allegedly groping the bottom of his companion of the moment - Geri Halliwell, no less - before boldly inquiring whether or not she was wearing a thong. If this were true, it might be a cheering anecdote about the wealthy young socialite who could soon be playing a major role at a 181-year-old Fleet Street institution. On the whole, though, it seems unlikely.
True, we know precious little about Lebedev beyond the fact that his father Alexander, a KGB-agent-turned-multibillionaire, is reportedly in the process of using some of his fortune to acquire the London Evening Standard, and that if the deal comes off Lebedev Sr, himself rather unkindly known as The Spy Who Came in for the Gold, has indicated that his 28-year-old son will be a director of the paper's new holding company. But what we do know suggests that grabbing Ginger Spice's backside in a very public place would be out of character. "He's incredibly reserved," says a member of the west London party set who knows Evgeny well. "Yes, he has some extravagant tastes - a vast wardrobe of designer clothes, and some amazing but very discreet jewellery. But in all his personal interactions, he's very quiet, diffident, very caring. Very intelligent. Actually quite shy, I think."
The biographical details are scant. Evgeny reportedly went to a local Church of England school while his father was working as a junior spy in the Soviet Union's Kensington Palace Gardens embassy in the 1980s. He is, according to Tatler, which in 2007 voted him Britain's third most eligible bachelor, a graduate of the London School of Economics who studied for a master's degree in art history. (The magazine described him as "a jazz musician" who entertains in "a fabulous blacked-out flat in Belgravia", although they may have confused him with an award-winning pianist from the Russian Academy of Music also called Evgeny Lebedev.)
After what another acquaintance described as "a perhaps rather party-heavy 1990s", Lebedev Jr appears to have settled down, busying himself with fashion and food-related ventures. He has an interest in a luxury boutique hotel in Umbria called Palazza Terranova and in a brace of restaurants, Sake No Hana (with Wagamama founder Alan Yau) and The Silver Room in London. He also has stakes in the Moscow Art Theatre and the Anton Chekhov Theatre in Yalta, and is a major shareholder in Wintle, a high-end - and highly regarded - London men's couture company run by a friend, Jsen Wintle, and is reportedly a partner in a bid to launch Jefferson Hack's Dazed & Confused magazine in Russia. He was associate producer on a Russian film, Paper Soldier, last year.
Little is known about how well any of these ventures have fared financially.
The tabloids have focused on Evgeny's dates: he squired Halliwell to a number of events a couple of years ago, and is currently to be seen in the company of actor Joely Richardson, 16 years his senior. But his most laudable achievements to date are in charity. He runs the Raisa Gorbachev Foundation, founded with his father in 2006 and named after the late wife of Mikhail Gorbachev, who died of leukaemia in 1999. The foundation holds an extravagant, star-studded fundraiser each year; the last two have been at Hampton Court Palace, and Elton John performed in 2007. Guests include Ralph Fiennes, Naomi Campbell, Madonna, Hugh Grant and JK Rowling. The Lebedevs have built a 12-storey cancer hospital in St Petersburg, where sick children can be treated free of charge.
Anastasia Webster, wife of society jeweller Stephen Webster, interviewed Lebedev for Russian Elle recently and declared he was "someone about whom no one has a bad word to say". If he holds a party, she wrote, everyone just has to go. Those who know say Lebedev has "set a standard" for modern Russian philanthropy, inspiring people such as supermodel Natalia Vodianova and Dasha Zhukova, Roman Abramovich's girlfriend, to get involved in an activity as glamorous and patriotic as it is generous. "I haven't done anything in particular to make this happen," she quoted him as saying. "We have worthy aims with our events - helping children with cancer, for example. And I have a lot of good friends; they come because of these aims, and because of me. We have raised over $4m already. As to what other people say about me ... well, it's better to ask them."
Unfortunately, few seem very keen to tell. "Charming", "amazingly agreeable", "a bit of a dandy, but a very, very nice chap", "as much an Englishman as a Russian", "sharp, but still very much his father's man" is the most many who have met him will offer. Whether those talents will be enough to help turn around the ailing Standard remains to be seen. Even his father made it plain, in a frank interview with the Guardian, that he was not sure his son would be "of any use" to the paper. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/jan/16/evgeny-lebedev-media
There are two big questions for James Murdoch, the chairman of News International, who tonight announced the closure of the News of the World.
The first is whether he sacrificed a business, and the career prospects of the News of the World's staff, to protect a particularly valued employee: Rebekah Brooks, the chief executive of News International.
Presumably, no-one will think that he did that in a conscious, deliberate way.
But the sharpest critics of the malpractices at the News of the World, such as the Labour leader Ed Miliband, have been calling for her head.
None of those critics, to my knowledge, were demanding that the News of the World should be shut.
So it is at least plausible that if Rebekah Brooks had resigned in the past 24 hours, some of the popular and political fury towards News International and the News of the World would have been assuaged.
The second question is whether the closure of the News of the World will be seen by the media regulator, Ofcom, as making News Corporation, parent company of News International, a more or less fit-and-proper owner of British Sky Broadcasting, the UK's biggest television business (it is Ofcom's statutory duty to adjudicate on that important issue).
On the one hand, James Murdoch can say that the rot within his organisation has tonight been cut out.
On the other hand, he has admitted in a remarkable statement that he and his father Rupert Murdoch failed to identify that the News of the World's newsroom was out of control for many years.
And even when evidence started to emerge in 2006 that the News of the World was obtaining stories in illicit ways, it took four more years for News International to identify the extent of what went wrong.
So some will say that this long inability to get to grips with the malaise at the News of the World means that News Corporation, a sprawling global empire, needs to demonstrate that it can exercise rather closer and more diligent control over a business, British Sky Broadcasting, that is vastly bigger and more important to the cultural life of the UK than the News of the World.
Reaction is coming in to the announcement that Sunday's issue of the News of the World will be the last edition of the paper.
It follows claims the paper authorised hacking into mobile phones including those of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler and the families of 7/7 bombing victims.
In a statement to staff, News International chairman James Murdoch said the good things the paper does "have been sullied by behaviour that was wrong - indeed, if recent allegations are true, it was inhuman and has no place in our company".
James Murdoch, News International chairman
James Murdoch: "These allegations are shocking and hugely regrettable"
Rebekah [Brooks] and I are absolutely committed, this company is committed, to doing the right thing and what that means is about co-operating and working fully with the police investigations into those alleged practices and into those activities. It's also about putting into place the processes, so that we understand what happened and we have a process in place to make sure these things don't happen again. I'm satisfied that Rebekah, her leadership of this business and her standard of ethics and her standard of conduct throughout her career are very good."
News of the World editor Colin Myler
"This is the saddest day of my professional career. For 168 years the News of the World has been a huge part of many peoples' lives. Sundays without this great British institution will not be the same."
Ed Miliband, Labour leader
Labour leader Ed Miliband: "I don't think this solves the problem"
"It's a big decision but I don't think it solves the problem. Because after all lots of people are losing their jobs today but one of the people who's remaining in her job is the chief executive of News International who was the editor at the time ... What I'm interested in is not closing down newspapers. I'm interested in those who were responsible being brought to justice and those who had responsibility for the running of that newspaper taking their responsibility and I don't think those two things have happened today."
Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Guardian, which investigated phone hacking
"Mr Murdoch blames 'wrongdoers' who 'turned a good newsroom bad'. He does not say who these wrongdoers were - and that is the crucial question people will be asking, including those who are paying with their jobs and who are angry about the loss of a 168-year-old newspaper title."
Dan Wootton, NoW showbiz editor
NoW showbusiness editor Dan Wootton: "It's been devastating"
You ask any journalist at the News of World about the allegations that have been made over the last week and we are disgusted. We are not reading about the newspaper we work for today - it's a brilliant newspaper and that's what is so sad about this. It was a decision that, we have been told, was made at board level in New York - that's the explanation that's been given to us. What we are sad about is our readers will no longer get the newspaper that they love and that they buy in their droves... For us, we didn't see this coming. Why the decision has been made, for the staff at the News of the World, is irrelevant to be honest. We are just devastated."
Tom Watson, Labour MP
"Let's be clear about this, this paper has closed but the hacking saga has not. The issue for me today is not whether Rupert Murdoch closes a paper that was going to go bankrupt because there are no advertisers or readers left, it is whether Rebekah Brooks is going to consider her position and resign as chief executive of News International.
"The anger will only subside when a very senior executive in this company takes responsibility for this heinous attack on British people."
Dowler family solicitor Mark Lewis
Mr Lewis told Sky News the newspaper's closure "won't make any difference at all to anybody's civil claims".
"Any crimes, any phone hacking, any other activities that were done weren't done by the News of the World, they were done by people working for it," he told Sky News. It's sad that other people have been sacrificed, will lose their jobs, but the people who are responsible are still there."
David Wooding, NoW political editor
"We knew we were in a bad place but we never expected a bombshell as big as this," he told the BBC News Channel.
He said hacking had happened under an entirely different group of staff, and added: "Hard-working journalists will carry the can for a previous regime."
Downing Street spokesman
"What matters is that all wrongdoing is exposed and those responsible for these appalling acts are brought to justice. As the prime minister has made clear, he is committed to establishing rigorous public inquiries to make sure this never happens in our country again."
Max Clifford, publicist
"They were obviously aware of not only the tremendous damage done to the News of the World but also News International by recent allegations.
"My belief is that there is a lot more to come - I think that is why the decision was taken to pull the plug."
Paul McMullan, former NoW features editor
"At one point it was selling nearly eight million copies and nearly every adult member in Britain, person, used to read it and there it is - gone."
Peter Preston, former Guardian editor
"The story isn't by any means over yet. This was a big bang but there will be plenty of pops along the road."
Hugh Grant, actor
Actor Hugh Grant: "I think this is a cynical management manoeuvre"
"The News of the World was going out of business anyway, people were not going to buy it on Sunday, advertisers were falling out in their droves ... I think we should see this for what it is. It's a very cynical managerial manoeuvre which has put several hundred, not evil, people ... out of work and he's kept in particular one woman who was the editor [at the time] in a highly paid job."
Ken Clarke, Justice Secretary
On the news of the closure, Mr Clarke said: "All they're going to do is rebrand it."
John Prescott, former deputy prime minister
"It's a typical management stunt from Mr Murdoch. What he does is he gets rid of problems and in this case nobody in senior management ... none of those go but the poor old workers at the News of the World are going and there's no doubt it will become the Sunday Sun."
Rose Gentle, mother of British serviceman killed in Iraq
"The News of the World are the only journalists that we ever had bad dealings with. I'm glad that they're gone, but it doesn't mean we're going to give up the fight to find out if our families' phones were hacked."
John Whittingdale, chairman of the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee
"We still need to get to the bottom of what went on. If necessary, prosecutions should follow. I think we still need to find out what happened,"
Piers Morgan, former News of the World editor
"Shocked and saddened by closure of the News of the World," said Mr Morgan on Twitter.
"Scandals of past week indefensible, but has been a great British newspaper."
Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's former communications director
"At various stages they could and should have dealt with this ... As a former journalist I don't rejoice over the death of a newspaper but I do think that this is just the result of all the illegal activity but also the huge mismanagement of it ever since this started."
Chris Bryant, Labour MP
"This is designed to try and protect Rebekah Brooks, and I believe that if she had a shred of decency after what we have heard about Milly Dowler's phone being hacked, which happened on her watch as editor, she should have resigned by now ... This strategy of chucking first journalists, then executives and now a whole newspaper overboard isn't going to protect the person at the helm of the ship."
Conservative minister Chris Grayling
"Today's decision, to my mind, is almost immaterial to the key goal right now and that is to understand who is responsible for what has happened, for them to be properly investigated by the police and put before the courts."
Ivan Lewis, shadow culture secretary
"There are some really good guys who work at the News of the World right now. I feel very sorry for those people. They are paying the price for the past. They are paying the price for a company at the highest levels that was so arrogant, so failed in its responsibilities to take the allegations seriously and clean out the stables."
Conservative MP Zac Goldsmith
"It has got to be a good day for Britain. I think the News of the World as an organisation is toxic on almost every level. I think the country after Sunday will be a better place.
Michelle Stanistreet, National Union of Journalists
"This shows the depths to which Rupert Murdoch and his lieutenants at News International are prepared to stoop. The announcement James Murdoch should be making today is the dismissal of Rebekah Brooks as chief executive of News International... Closing the title and sacking over 200 staff in the UK and Ireland, and putting scores more freelances and casuals out of a job, is an act of utter cynical opportunism."
Don Foster MP - Lib Dem media spokesman
"This is a commercial decision that will affect many staff who had nothing to do with the phone hacking scandal. We need to find out the full extent of the phone hacking scandal and of the alleged police corruption and see those responsible for these vile actions prosecuted before we can close this dark chapter in British media history."
Cameron: Rebekah Brooks's resignation should have been accepted Link to this video
How well did David Cameron do at this morning's press conference over the phone-hacking affair, the tightest corner in which he has found himself since becoming prime minister? Pretty well, I thought. He does tone skilfully and sounded persuasive in his assurances to voters that this "wake-up call" – for politicians and police as well as the press – will not be ignored this time.
Where Cameron persistently failed to persuade was on the specifics of what has already happened. Why did he hire Andy Coulson as his communications director without more thorough checks? Why did he take him into No 10 against advice after the Guardian began to expose the wider scale of illegal activity at the News of the World. And what about his relationship with the Murdochs and their henchmen?
He didn't apologise for his own error of judgment – perhaps because in his own speech an hour earlier Ed Miliband had urged him to do so – but insisted that voters watching his statement would make up their own minds.
Time and time again, reporters at No 10 persisted with the Coulson line of attack. Cameron stuck to the line that he had wanted to give Coulson a second chance but that he – Coulson – had eventually come to the conclusion that "the second chance didn't work" because he kept being caught up in the enveloping scandal.
Cameron ducked challenges on James Murdoch's suitability – a "fit and proper person" – to get hold of all the BSkyB pay-TV network – but made it clear that if his personal friend Rebekah Brooks had offered her resignation to him he'd have accepted it. That is quite a blow at someone he has Christmas lunches with.
Nonetheless, this was deftly done. He could have disowned Coulson but said " I became friends with him and he is a friend." People respect personally loyalty even when the PM was clearly wrong to have taken him into his inner group in opposition – and into No 10. Coulson should not have gone there, either. It raised the stakes.
BSkyB? Cameron says prime ministers should no more decide who gets to run TV networks or close newspapers than they should be able to tell the police who to investigate or media moguls who to fire. That, too, is an attractive line of defence, suggesting he gets the point of pluralism and the rule of law. Good. But the hints were there that do not look good for the Murdoch bid. Good again.
His boldest stroke, surely, was in the encompassing way he tried to define the crisis. Not about a single paper or individual managers and journalists, but about the wider culture in which three important pillars of society – press, police and politicians relate to each other in less than transparent ways.
He told us little more about the two promised inquiries – the specific one about hacking – and the broader one on press ethics and regulation – except that it will have to await any prosecutions and will take a long time. I could hear the sound of long grass being cut, but not very much.
The novelty of it all was that Cameron said that politicians have ducked better press regulation because they were all too busy sucking up to media tycoons and execs whose support they want at elections. We didn't ask enough questions about these organisations, he said.
It was a bit like the expenses scandal – people knew things were wrong but didn't do anything to put it right. I suppose you could say the same of Cameron himself. When Coulson quit, he didn't ask him penetrating questions about what might still be revealed – nor did the former News of the World editor volunteer it. As things stand, said Dave, we still don't know who knew what at News International.
Crafty stuff which puts a lot more people in the frame. He also admitted that police payments and favours from newspapers raise similarly disturbing questions of openness and accountability. But it ducks aspects of this sort of relationship – including fear. People in public life are afraid of what a hostile media can do to them, just as they are sometimes fearful of the police.
One last point. I'm told that Murdoch papers around the world have varied in their coverage of the affair – zilch in Melbourne and nothing in the New York Post, but strong coverage elsewhere. I was struck again by how robust some of the in-house coverage has been – "Hacked to Death" was the Times's page-one headline – and how good the in-house NI questioning was at No 10. Full marks to BSkyB's Adam Boulton in particular.
Of course, they're on their best behaviour at present, that's in Murdoch's long-term interest. But it's a reminder that a robust and fearless press – properly regulated by what Cameron clearly wants to be a better version of the feeble Press Complaints Commission – is worth having and defending. http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2011/jul/08/phone-hacking-cameron-speech-coulson
Murdoch is reptilian .. read this so-called apology .. my [new] bold .. Wednesday, July 21, 2010 10:02:34 PM
Rupert Murdoch: I'm Sorry My Paper Is So Racist
As the Chairman of the New York Post, I am ultimately responsible for what is printed in its pages. The buck stops with me.
Last week, we made a mistake. We ran a cartoon that offended many people. Today I want to personally apologize to any reader who felt offended, and even insulted.
Over the past couple of days, I have spoken to a number of people and I now better understand the hurt this cartoon has caused. At the same time, I have had conversations with Post editors about the situation and I can assure you - without a doubt - that the only intent of that cartoon was to mock a badly written piece of legislation. It was not meant to be racist, but unfortunately, it was interpreted by many as such.
Phone hacking: Murdochs agree to appear before MPs 14 July 2011 Last updated at 19:59 GMT
James and Rupert Murdoch James and Rupert Murdoch initially declined an invitation to appear before MPs next Tuesday
News Corporation's Rupert and James Murdoch have agreed to appear before MPs to answer questions on the phone-hacking scandal on Tuesday.
The Commons media committee had issued summonses after the men initially declined to appear next week.
News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks had agreed to attend.
Meanwhile, Neil Wallis, ex-News of the World executive editor, was arrested on Thursday morning on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications.
Mr Wallis, also a former member of the Editors' Code of Practice Committee, is the ninth person to have been arrested since the Metropolitan Police launched a fresh phone-hacking investigation in January.
The Murdoch-owned News of the World (NoW) was shut down last week amid the mounting scandal over the alleged hacking of phones belonging to crime victims, politicians and celebrities.
In the US, it is being reported that the FBI is investigating alleged hacking of the phones of 9/11 victims by the News of the World.
A growing group of senators and a senior Republican congressman have been calling for the authorities to investigate the allegations.
Democratic Senator Robert Menendez, who wrote to the attorney general to urge an investigation, said the claims newspapers sought to "exploit information about... personal tragedies for profit" needed to be probed. ................. “ I hope that in amongst the theatre that actually we do start to get some answers” Martin Moore Director, Media Standards Trust ................. 'Serious questions'
On Tuesday, the UK's Commons culture, media and sport committee had invited the Murdochs and Mrs Brooks to give evidence at the House of Commons about the phone-hacking scandal.
In a statement, the MPs said that serious questions had arisen about the evidence Mrs Brooks and Andy Coulson, both of them former News of the World editors, gave at a previous hearing in 2003.
In his initial response to committee chairman John Whittingdale, Rupert Murdoch said that although he was not available on Tuesday, he was "fully prepared" to give evidence to the judge-led inquiry announced by the government.
James Murdoch offered to appear on an alternative date, the earliest of which was 10 August, while Mrs Brooks said she "welcomed the opportunity" to give evidence.
But after the committee issued summonses on Thursday morning for the men to appear, a few hours later News Corporation announced that the pair would attend the committee meeting.
In a letter to Mr Whittingdale confirming their attendance, James Murdoch wrote: "I hope that it is clear that we are committed to ensuring that the issues that have affected the News of the World are fully investigated and dealt with appropriately and robustly."
But he went on to warn the committee against encroaching on the public inquiry and police investigation of the phone-hacking allegations.
"We have been advised that, in the light of the fact that there are to be multiple reviews of the issues, this does carry the risk of prejudicing other judicial proceedings and in particular the ongoing police investigation and any potential subsequent prosecutions," he wrote.
"I would therefore respectfully ask you to take the utmost care in ensuring that the committee hearing does not run any risk of prejudicing that investigation and subsequent prosecutions."
The summonses were the first to be issued by a parliamentary select committee for almost 20 years, since the sons of the late newspaper tycoon Robert Maxwell were ordered to appear in 1992.
Committee chairman John Whittingdale said: "It will be the first time that Rupert Murdoch and James Murdoch, and indeed, Rebekah Brooks will have answered questions about this.
Click to play .. video inside .. John Whittingdale: "There will be a whole range of questions people will want asking"
"They will be appearing before a parliamentary committee so I would hope they would take it seriously and they will give us the answers that not just we want to hear but I think an awful lot of people will want to hear," he told Sky News.
Martin Moore, director of the Media Standards Trust charity which campaigned for a public inquiry into phone-hacking, said the Murdochs' appearance before MPs would be "remarkable theatre".
"But I hope that in amongst the theatre that actually we do start to get some answers to the questions that most people will be asking," he said.
Menezes cousin
London mayor Boris Johnson is meeting Met Police Commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, to discuss the hiring of Neil Wallis as a consultant for the force, for which the journalist was paid £24,000.
Neil Wallis, a former executive editor of the News of the World, was arrested at 0630 BST on Thursday
It is understood that Home Secretary Theresa May has written to Sir Paul to get the "full picture" on the circumstances surrounding his appointment.
And the Home Affairs Select Committee has also written to ask him to give further evidence on the matter next Tuesday.
As part of the contract, Mr Wallis advised the Commissioner's Office, and the Directorate of Public Affairs and Specialist Operations, working closely with Assistant Commissioner John Yates.
Police are contacting about 30 suspected phone-hacking victims a week, the BBC understands, after investigations identified some 4,000 possible targets of the tactic.
The family of Jean Charles de Menezes, who was shot dead by police in July 2005, says the details of the mobile phone of his cousin were found in documents seized by police.
In other developments:
The government has published the advice given to Gordon Brown over launching an inquiry into News International, .. http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/resource-library/cabinet-secretary-advice-establishment-judicial-inquiry .. after the ex-prime minister claimed officials talked him out of taking action. Mr Brown said Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell warned him not to start a probe in 2010, as it was too close to a general election
Business Secretary Vince Cable told the BBC Radio 4 PM programme: "It is a little bit like the end of a dictatorship when everybody suddenly discovers they were against the dictator". He was stripped of his powers on media regulation after he told undercover reporters he had "declared war" on Rupert Murdoch in December 2010.
Chief Constable of Surrey Police Mark Rowley has told BBC Surrey he is "immensely frustrated" .. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-14153261 .. that, because of the Metropolitan Police investigation, he is not able to respond to claims his force was aware that murdered 13-year-old Milly Dowler's phone had been hacked
On Wednesday, Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, whose UK arm - News International - owns the Sun, the Times, the Sunday Times and the now closed News of the World, dropped a bid to take complete control of satellite broadcaster BSkyB.
Coulson sues Murdoch group over legal fees September 23, 2011 11:42 pm
By Ben Fenton and Caroline Binham
Andy Coulson, the former editor of the News of the World, is suing the newspaper’s parent company after it refused to continue paying his legal fees in connection with a criminal investigation into the phone-hacking scandal.
Jo Rickards, a partner at DLA Piper, his lawyers, confirmed that the firm had filed a suit in the Queen’s Bench Division on Thursday alleging breach of contract. She declined to comment further.
Two people connected to the parties said News Group Newspapers, the parent company, had continued to pay Mr Coulson’s legal fees in connection with evidence he may give to parliamentary committees investigating the scandal or to the Leveson inquiry into press behaviour, but not those associated with any criminal investigation.
Mr Coulson is on bail to return to a police station in London next month.
He resigned as the editor of Rupert Murdoch’s Sunday tabloid in January 2007 after Clive Goodman, one of his reporters, and Glenn Mulcaire, a private detective contracted to the paper, were jailed for hacking.
He said at the time that he was unaware of their activities, and News Group Newspapers maintained from that time until early this year that the hacking was the work of only those two men.
Six months after his resignation, Mr Coulson went to work as director of communications for David Cameron at the Conservative party and followed him into No 10 in 2010.
Reporting by The Guardian and other newspapers including the Financial Times since 2009 has shown that hacking was widespread and involved thousands of victims.
The revelation on July 4 that the phone of Milly Dowler, the murdered 13-year-old Surrey schoolgirl, was hacked by Mr Mulcaire prompted Mr Murdoch to close the News of the World.
Mr Coulson was subsequently arrested by police investigating both the hacking and corrupt payments to officers. He is one of 16 people to have been held.
Questions about the payment of his legal fees also began to be asked after it emerged that Mr Coulson had been paid his severance package of more than two years’ salary in instalments after he had begun to work for Mr Cameron in 2007.
Mr Coulson retained Ms Rickards when he was first arrested and News International picked up his legal bill. The criminal defence lawyer charges at least £400 an hour.
The Metropolitan Police declined to comment on Friday on a report in The Daily Telegraph that News International allegedly paid £25,000 to Neil Wallis, ex-deputy editor at the News of the World, while he was working as a press adviser to Scotland Yard
The Metropolitan Police declined to comment on Friday on a report in The Daily Telegraph that News International journalists had paid £25,000 to Neil Wallis, formerly deputy editor at the News of the World, while he was working on a part-time contract offering press advice to the Commissioner of Scotland Yard.
Market Data 
Markets 
AI
