New Hacking Case Outrages Britain

By Ravi Somaiya and Sarah Lyall, The New York Times

28 July 11

ritain was awash in a new surge of outrage over the phone hacking scandal on Thursday, as news emerged that Scotland Yard had added to the list of probable victims a woman whose 8-year-old daughter was murdered by a repeat sex offender in 2000.

The tabloid at the center of the scandal, The News of the World, had championed the campaign of the grieving mother, Sara Payne, for a law warning parents if child sex offenders lived nearby. Mrs. Payne, who was paralyzed by a stroke in recent years, had written warmly of the paper in its final edition, calling it "an old friend."

A statement released on behalf of Mrs. Payne by the Phoenix Foundation, a children's charity she founded, described her as devastated and disappointed. "Today is a very sad dark day for us," the charity added in a posting on Facebook. "Our faith in good people has taken a real battering." The page noted that she was struggling in the wake of the July 1 anniversary of her daughter's abduction.

British news channels, which had been growing weary of the scandal - into a fourth week of cascading revelations that have shaken the media, political elite and police - broke into their scheduled reports to report the allegations that Ms. Payne had been hacked.

"Forgive me if I sound cynical," said one member of parliament, Tom Watson, who has led investigations into hacking, "but I don't know where it is going to end."

"The last edition of The News of the World made great play of the paper's relationship with the Payne family," he noted, saying, "I have nothing but contempt for the people that did this."

The Guardian was the first to report Scotland Yard's alert to Mrs. Payne, but the e-mail newsletter Popbitch suggested earlier this month that Mrs. Payne's voice mail had been hacked and that the phone in question may have been provided to her by the onetime editor of The News of the World, Rebekah Brooks, as part of the campaign for the law.

In a statement, Ms. Brooks confirmed that The News of the World had provided Mrs. Payne with a cellphone "for the last 11 years," but that "it was not a personal gift." She said she found the allegations that Mrs. Payne's voice mail had been hacked "abhorrent and particularly upsetting as Sara Payne is a dear friend."

When Ms. Brooks, who has been forced to step down from News International, the British arm of Rubert Murdoch's News Corporation and owner of The News of the World, recently testified before Parliament, she cited the successful campaign for Mrs. Payne's law as evidence of the good she had done at the tabloid's helm. A spokeswoman for News International said the company had no immediate comment.

Scotland Yard officers told Mrs. Payne that her name was on a list of about 4,000 targets held by the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, according to the Phoenix Foundation statement. Mr. Mulcaire, who was convicted on hacking charges related to the paper five years ago, had an exclusive contract with the tabloid.

The hacking scandal had been smoldering for years, but ignited in recent weeks following assertions that hacking on behalf of The News of the World had interfered with the investigation into the 2006 murder of a 13-year-old girl, Milly Dowler. The man eventually convicted of her killing committed two more murders before he was caught.

Also on Thursday, the British judge leading the inquiry into the scandal held a news conference in central London, saying that the panel planned to hold its first public hearings in September and that it would have the power to compel witnesses to testify.

The inquiry will be in two parts. The first will focus on press regulation and the relationship between the press and the public, said the judge, Lord Justice Leveson. The second, which will begin after the police investigation is finished, will focus on specific allegations of phone hacking and other journalistic malfeasance in the wake of the scandal, which has spread through British media but which has most strongly shaken Mr. Murdoch's media empire.

Justice Leveson was appointed by Prime Minister David Cameron after it became clear that hacking at The News of the World extended not only to public figures like celebrities and politicians, but also to Milly Dowler and the families of those killed in terrorist attacks. Mr. Cameron, a Conservative, initially resisted setting up an immediate inquiry, but changed his mind in response to widespread public disgust and growing political pressure from the opposition Labour Party.

The judge said that the investigation would be broad. "The focus of the inquiry is the culture, practices and ethics of the press in the context of the latter's relationship with the public, the police and politicians," he said.

His goal, he added, would be to "consider what lessons, if any, may be learned from past events" and to make recommendations about how the press might be regulated in the future.

One of the issues the judge will consider is the coziness of the ties between politicians and the news media - particularly the relationship between lawmakers and editors and executives at News International.

In another sign of how far News International's influence extends - or has extended, until now - in British public life, it emerged last week that Justice Leveson himself had attended two parties last year at the home of Elisabeth Murdoch, a daughter of Mr. Murdoch, and her husband, Matthew Freud, a powerful public-relations executive.

Justice Leveson said that because he and the rest of the inquiry panel - which includes former journalists and a former high-ranking police officer, among others - had been chosen "for our experience," it was "inevitable" that "there are such contacts or links, and there should be no apology for this."

He added, "Had I had the slightest doubt about my own position, I would not have accepted the appointment, and I also make it clear that I am satisfied that what the panelists have said creates no conflict of interest for them or me."

Justice Leveson also said that the panel would convene seminars examining media ethics, the law and investigative journalism. He said that he hoped to make the inquiry as broad as possible and encompass broadcast journalists as well as those from the print media.

A spokesman for the panel said that witnesses would testify under oath.

"It may be tempting for a number of people to close ranks and suggest that the problem is or was local to a group of journalists then operating at The News of the World," Justice Leveson said. "But I would encourage all to take a wider view of the public good and help me grapple with the width and depth of the problem."

Sarah Lyall contributed reporting.