Hacking inquiry – Hacked off

by Brian Cathcart Peter Hill was editor of the Daily Express for seven years, from the end of 2003 to early 2011. Among his claims to fame is that he edited the newspaper throughout the Madeleine McCann affair in 2007-8, overseeing coverage that led to a £550,000 libel pay-out by the group and to grovelling [...]

“I should have gone there and thrown all the damn lawyers out of the place” (Rupert Murdoch, Leveson Inquiry, Thursday 26th April 2012, p.68) Amongst the many people and organisations Rupert Murdoch lambasted during his two days in the stand at the Leveson Inquiry this week, lawyers and law firms were particularly prominent. Lawyers and [...]

by Brian Cathcart After all the excitements of the Murdoch week it would be easy to imagine that the Leveson inquiry’s job of tackling press abuse in this country is done, or at least that the worst is over and the objective is in sight. Not so. We might never have imagined that News International [...]

by Brian Cathcart The Information Commissioner, Christopher Graham, is angry about the publication on the Guido Fawkes blog of part of the Motorman files. What he doesn’t say, because no reasonable person could make such a claim, is that he is surprised that this has happened. Plenty of people have gained access to this information [...]

Participants in the Leveson Inquiry have been warned not to leak information to journalists, after a controversial programme on alleged data breaches by newspaper groups was broadcast last night. During the morning hearing, Lord Justice Leveson responded to the ITN programme, which made several allegations about the Operation Motorman files, detailing the use of private investigator Steve [...]

The Leveson Inquiry urgently needs to break open the Motorman files – not least because they might reveal how phone hacking really worked Few news outlets reported in detail the evidence of Alec Owens, an ex-policeman and former Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) investigator who gave evidence to the Leveson Inquiry about Operation Motorman and its [...]