Police won’t probe Murdoch tabloid phone-hacking claims

Contrary to reports, UK police won’t be probing a British newspaper’s claim that employees at a competitor hacked into phones belonging to officials and celebrities.

The Associated Press reports, “British police say there will be no new investigation into allegations that journalists from a tabloid newspaper illegally hacked into the mobile phones of hundreds of celebrities and politicians.”

Assistant Commissioner John Yates was asked by London’s police chief to look into the claims against the News of the World paper. But Yates said Thursday he won’t launch any new inquiry.

In 2007, the paper’s royal editor, Clive Goodman, was jailed for four months for hacking into royal officials’ voicemail.

However, The Guardian reports now, “The Crown Prosecution Service today said it would undertake an urgent review of evidence in the News of the World phone hacking case, after the Metropolitan Police revealed it did not plan a further investigation of the allegations.”

Also, the paper reports, “Andy Coulson, the former News of the World editor, now the Tory communications chief, could be grilled by MPs for a Commons inquiry into the affair.”

The Guardian story continues,

John Yates, the Metropolitan Police’s assistant commissioner, said that no further evidence had come to light since Scotland Yard’s original investigation, which led to the News of the World’s royal editor, Clive Goodman, and a private investigator, Glenn Mulcaire, being jailed for four and six months respectively in January 2007 after they were found guilty of hacking into the mobile phones of royal household staff. Coulson also resigned after Goodman was jailed in January 2007.

Speaking outside Scotland Yard in central London, Yates said he was not involved in the original Mulcaire and Goodman investigation and had reviewed the facts of the case with “an independent mind”.

Original AFP report which claimed that there would be a new probe follows:

LONDON (AFP) — Police chiefs were on Thursday investigating allegations that a top-selling newspaper paid private investigators to hack into the mobile phones of thousands of high-profile figures.

Government ministers, actors, singers, football stars, models and novelists were among those allegedly targeted by the News of the World, a keystone of media baron Rupert Murdoch’s global empire.

London’s Metropolitan Police said it would swiftly “establish the facts” and issue a statement later Thursday.

The Guardian newspaper said publishers News Group Newspapers had paid more than one million pounds out of court to suppress legal cases that would have revealed evidence about the scale of phone tapping.

Former deputy prime minister John Prescott — among those allegedly hit — is demanding to know why he was not told, if the police knew his phone had been tapped.

News Group publishes News of the World, which sells 2.9 million copies every Sunday, as well as The Sun, the country’s best-selling daily newspaper. Both tabloids are rich in celebrity and sports stories.

In a statement to AFP, News Group’s parent company News International said it was “inappropriate to comment at this time”.

The practice was first exposed when the News of the World’s royal editor was jailed in 2007 after the phone messages of aides to Prince William, the eldest son of Prince Charles and the late princess Diana, were tapped.

The Guardian’s report significantly broadened the alleged scope of illegally hacking into the mobile phone messages of public figures in order to generate stories.

Reporters were said by the daily to have hired private investigators to access personal data such as addresses, tax records, social security files and bank statements.

Among those allegedly targeted were actors Gwyneth Paltrow and Jude Law, singer George Michael, ex-England football manager Sven-Goran Eriksson, novelist Jeffrey Archer and Prescott.

Models Elle Macpherson and Lisa Snowdon, London Mayor Boris Johnson, the late reality television star Jade Goody and chef Nigella Lawson were also targeted, The Guardian said.

“If these allegations are to be believed, the enormity of it is unbelievable,” Prescott told the BBC.

“Why was a separate deal done in the court and then put away, and not made available to us?”

Metropolitan Police commissioner Paul Stephenson said his assistant commissioner John Yates would “establish the facts” about the claims and report back later Thursday.

“If we need to investigate, we will investigate,” he told Sky News television.

“We will do the right thing and do what we have to do to investigate crime wherever it exists.”

News of the World royal editor Clive Goodman was jailed for four months in 2007 for hacking into more than 600 messages on mobile phones of aides to the royal family, including from Prince William.

The Guardian quoted a senior Metropolitan Police source as saying that during the Goodman inquiry, officers had found evidence of News Group staff using private detectives who hacked into “thousands” of mobile phones.

In one of the three cases it settled, News Group reportedly paid out 700,000 pounds in damages and legal costs to Gordon Taylor, the head of the Professional Footballers’ Association.

The Guardian said Taylor sued the newspaper group after he was targeted by a private detective who hacked into his phone.

News Group settled with a condition that Taylor sign a gagging clause to prevent him speaking about the case, The Guardian said.

The News of the World, a sensationalist Sunday tabloid, is Britain’s biggest-selling weekly paper.

Many of its biggest scoops have been secured by the notorious “fake sheikh” — undercover reporter Mazher Mahmood, who disguises himself as a wealthy Arab to snare celebrities into indiscretions and admissions.

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