Hackers vs hack
Phone hacking , Issue 1657

AFTER the trial of Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson in 2014, police planned to resume their investigation into phone hacking and other illegal activities at the News of the World's publisher, and requested an interview under caution with Rupert Murdoch which would have treated him as a criminal suspect.

But such was the "fusillade of aggression" unleashed upon the Met by Murdoch's legal team that the plan was abandoned, and officers were persuaded to interview the journalist who broke the story in an effort to discover his sources instead.

That is one of the claims by Nick Davies, the former Guardian hack who broke the most significant stories in the phone-hacking scandal, in the new version of his book Hack Attack being published this week.

Target acquired
Davies, who has continued to dig into the alleged use of voicemail interception on the corporate side of Murdoch's empire, has discovered that when he broke the story of James Murdoch approving a secret legal settlement with a hacking victim in 2009, a file was opened, headed "Nick Davies Research", to which a number of senior News of the Screws executives contributed.

At the same time, paperwork disclosed as part of court actions reveals that staff on the paper were ordered to "mount an attack on any MPs who were seen to be stirring up the phone-hacking story" and in particular seek "stunning dirt/rumours" about Labour's Tom Watson, whose mobile phone was accessed repeatedly.

Lib Dem Chris Huhne, who was also outspoken in parliament about the emerging scandal, had "more than 200 potentially suspect contacts with his phone" made from a hub number at Murdoch's London HQ, and was subject to 125 hours of covert surveillance by a private investigator commissioned by the Screws.

It's personal
Senior executive Will Lewis, now CEO of the Washington Post, is on record as telling colleagues in March 2011 that "we need to go for Watson personally", while News Corp's director of public affairs Fred Michel emailed the NotW's editor a year earlier to tell him: "We need to get Huhne."

Both politicians subsequently received substantial settlements from News Corp which prevented their claims against the company being aired in open court (Eyes passim). News Corp lawyers maintain that any such claims of "targeting" are "completely unfounded".

More top stories in the latest issue:

CARNAL RELATIONS
The Sun and Mirror are pursuing a disturbing way to drive traffic to their clickbait websites: making hacks write lots of "incest" stories.

FLAT HUNTING
The Sun's Fabulous magazine went on a very specific hunt in its quest to capitalise on the furore over Angela Rayner's housing arrangements.

FLAGGING INTEREST
There was disappointment across much of the media as violent clashes of the scale that besmirched "tinderbox Britain" in 2024 failed to materialise.

RACE TO THE BOTTOM
The sanctification of Lucy Connolly on her release from a sentence for inciting racial hatred required some spectacular reverse-ferrets from much of the press.

LIVE LONG & PROSPER?
The London Standard is going on sale again – although only in "outer London" and "through to the Kent coast", while remaining worthless in "central areas".

WOO-WOO IS ME
The Daily Mail is establishing itself as your one-stop shop for credulous nonsense, with articles galore about visits by aliens, ghosts and more.

HITCH SLAP
Peter Hitchens took aim in the Mail on Sunday at "an obscure Tory peer with intellectual pretensions" – who happens to be a fellow Mail columnist!

LIMITED REACH
Publishing group Reach plc has "plans to radically reorganise our functions" – in other words, to shrink the editorial team yet further.

FISSION EXPEDITION
The Telegraph hailed Sizewell C as "the solution to Britain's energy security problems", in an article by, er, the MD of the Sizewell C project.