Everyone knew NoTW 'rogue reporter' bit was untrue James Murdoch was made aware in 2008 that alleged phone-hacking practices at the News of the World went beyond "one rogue reporter", the former legal manager of News Group Newspapers claimed to MPs today. Tom Crone said that an email with the subject line "For Neville" was "the first piece of evidence we'd seen that showed [ …
I mean, who'd put the title as "For Neville" in an email - isn't that apparent from the address? Though I suppose "Everyone knows about phone hacking" might be a little too obvious.
As for knowing - uhhh, sure. But as any lawyer and politician knows: it's what you can prove, and when they knew it, that matters.
The fact that journalists hack voicemail (NOTW ones and many others) is possibly the worst kept secret in the newspaper industry! The Murdochs would have known that more than one NOTW reporter were at it, and in fact that Sun reporters had been busted doing it too (read Private Eye). They have only settled the cases where they could not bury the evidence such as the For Neville email.
Right about now every single newspaper editor is looking pretty shifty (well more than usual anyway) and it simply comes down to proving what everyone knows, either first hand or anecdotally. Sadly, the newspapers have had a fair few years now to bury the evidence thanks to the corruption/incompetence of the police...
The guys like the editor and reporters will be the sacrificial lambs, while the guys at the top (the Murdochs) will walk away from this mess with nothing but the profits they have made. They will throw any and all before them under the bus to save their own necks and as usual they will walk away like the majority of the MP's who scammed the UK public simply because they have to power to allow them to do so.
We've all become very cynical.
Sure it seems that it was routine for police officers to accept payments from tabloid journalists for information. Sure there were numerous regular meetings between tabloids and the police that appear to have been informal and unminuted. Sure it seems that the tabloids had various bits of dirt on various senior police officers and had hacked their voice mail too. Sure certain tabloids stepped in after the major police screw ups (Menezes and Forest Gate incidents), bigging up the police by printing lies to discredit the victims and give false justification for police actions. Sure the tabloids offered highly paid columnist jobs to senior police after they retired.
But is the British public so cynical as to believe that this would somehow influence the police in doing a thorough investigation of serious criminal acts, including interfering with potential evidence in the Milly Dowler case?
Is it me, or does this process of "Out of Court Settlement" strike anyone else as fundamentally wrong?
Surely, this amounts to little more than bribing the plaintiff into withdrawing their accusation?
Plaintiff: "M'lud, this man defamed me in print! I demand justice!"
Judge: "I see! Present your evidence then."
Accused: "Psst! Plaintiff! Here, have some cash..."
Plaintiff: "M'lud, I was wrong, nothing bad has happened here!"
At this point the judge should surely be looking at "Perverting the cause of justice" or, at the very least, "wasting the courts time" (contempt).
How is that rich people/companies can simply BUY their way out of trouble?
The whole purpose, and only purpose of the law is to shift the cost of policing from the rich (who benefit) to the poor (who don't).
Remember the Law has nothing to do with Justice.
It's the same the whole world over
It's the poor what gets the blame
It's the rich what gets the pleasure
Ain't it all a bloomin' shame?
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