Pages

Sunday 20 November 2011

Phone-Hacking Victims To Appear At Inquiry

**Mark White, home affairs correspondent
The UK's tabloid industry is bracing for an uncomfortable week, with celebrities and ordinary members of the public join forces to testify about the trauma they suffered as phone-hacking victims.
Household names, like actors Hugh Grant and Sienna Miller, will head to the High Court alongside comedian Steve Coogan, author JK Rowling and singer Charlotte Church, as the Leveson Inquiry into press standards prepares to hear from victims.
However, it is the testimony not of celebrities but of ordinary people thrust into the headlines because of personal tragedy which is bound to have the biggest impact.
The parents of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler will tell the hearing of their heartbreak when a private investigator gave them false hope about their missing daughter by deleting messages from her mobile phone.
Sally and Bob Dowler, the first witnesses to give evidence, will also describe how the News Of The World (NOTW) intruded on their grief by publishing a picture of them privately retracing the route Milly was walking home when she was abducted in 2002.
The trigger for the inquiry was the revelation that the Sunday tabloid commissioned private detective Glenn Mulcaire to hack the schoolgirl's phone after she disappeared.
As well as listening to Milly's voicemails, the investigator also erased some of them to make room for new messages, falsely leading her family to believe she was still alive, the inquiry was told.
David Sherborne, counsel for the Dowlers and other victims of press intrusion, told the inquiry last week that Mrs Dowler felt "euphoria" when she finally got through to her missing daughter's voicemail as a result of Mulcaire's deletions.
"Perhaps there are no words which can adequately describe how despicable this act was," he said.
Mulcaire was jailed along with the NOTW's former royal editor Clive Goodman in January 2007 after they admitted intercepting voicemail messages left on phones belonging to royal aides.
Lord Justice Leveson's inquiry will also hear this week from 16 other alleged victims of media intrusion.
Hollywood actor Hugh Grant will testify after Mr and Mrs Dowler on Monday.
The star, who has become a fierce critic of the tabloid press over phone hacking, is expected to be highly critical of a number of newspaper titles.
Last week, the inquiry heard the High Court had recently granted an emergency injunction to the mother of Grant's baby daughter, to stop the paparazzi from hounding her.
The hearing was also told that Grant's former girlfriend received threatening phone calls during the summer, at a time when he was doing numerous media interviews condemning the tabloid press.
Monday's other witnesses will be lawyer Graham Shear and writer Joan Smith, whose phone was allegedly hacked because of her relationship with the MP Denis MacShane.
The Leveson Inquiry began its formal hearings at the Royal Courts of Justice in London last week.
The first part of the inquiry is looking at the culture, practices and ethics of the press in general.
The second part, examining the extent of unlawful activities by journalists, will not begin until detectives have completed their investigation into alleged phone hacking and corrupt payments to police, and any prosecutions have concluded.
:: Watch live coverage of the Leveson Inquiry this week on Sky News HD, iPad and online, which will stream live pictures and host a live blog with tweets from the hearing

No comments:

Post a Comment