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Britain's voracious tabloids may have hit a new low: The News of the World was facing claims Tuesday that it hacked into a missing 13-year-old's phone messages, possibly hampering a police inquiry into her abduction and murder.

Britons are used to seeing their press harass royals, sports stars and celebrities, constantly eavesdropping and paying even the most tangential sources for information about stars' sex lives and drug problems.

Yet the hacking case involving 13-year-old Milly Dowler has horrified everyone, from British Prime Minister David Cameron to movie stars to people who commented on Twitter.

"(It is) shocking that someone could do this, knowing that the police were trying to find this person and trying to find out what had happened," Cameron said while on a trip to Afghanistan.

The case has refocused the spotlight on the already tainted News of The World, part of Rupert Murdoch's global media empire at News Corp. It also comes as Murdoch is trying to engineer the politically sensitive, multibillion-pound takeover of broadcaster BSkyB in Britain.

Dowler's abduction in 2002 while walking home from school in Surrey, south of London, transfixed Britain until her decomposing body was found six months later in the woods by mushroom pickers.

But while police were pursuing all leads and Milly's parents were making dramatic appeals for any tidbit of information that could be useful, a private investigator working for the News of the World tabloid allegedly hacked into her cell phone, listened to her messages, and even deleted some to make room for possible new ones.

Mark Lewis, a lawyer representing Dowler's parents, said Tuesday the suspected hacking may have hampered the police investigation and he plans to sue the tabloid for its interference.

It was never determined how long Dowler was alive after being abducted but the tabloid's actions reportedly came right after her disappearance. Police realized some messages had been deleted, giving them and Milly's parents false hope that she was still alive.

"It is distress heaped upon tragedy to learn that the News of the World had no humanity at such a terrible time," Lewis said. "The fact that they were prepared to act in such a heinous way that could have jeopardized the police investigation and give them false hope is despicable."


http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=14001073

The Hen wrote:I think we are seeing the beginning of the end of News of the World.

New allegations have emerged of payments to the police as the row around the News of the World escalates.

The paper's owners have passed to the police e-mails which appear to show that payments were authorised by the then editor, Andy Coulson.

It comes as a solicitor representing some of the relatives of people who died in the 7/7 bombings says families may have been victims of hacking.

MPs will hold an emergency debate in the House of Commons later.

BBC business editor Robert Peston said the e-mail disclosure was "a significant development".

He said it had an important political dimension, in that Mr Coulson went on to work for David Cameron as director of communications at 10 Downing Street. Mr Coulson resigned from that post in January.

Our correspondent said it also shows that the police investigation into alleged illicit techniques used by the News of the World to obtain stories goes much wider than an examination of the hacking of mobile phones.

BBC political editor Nick Robinson said Mr Cameron will have returned from Afghanistan to find himself "at the centre of the row about media ethics, the power of the Murdoch empire and his own judgement in hiring Andy Coulson".

The latest developments came after allegations private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, working for the News of the World, hacked the phone of murdered girl Milly Dowler when she was missing.

Sue U wrote:Australia has a lot to answer for in inflicting Rupert Murdoch on the world.

Sue U wrote:Australia has a lot to answer for in inflicting Rupert Murdoch on the world.

David Cameron has promised to set up a public inquiry into phone hacking at the News of the World.

The UK prime minister said claims that the voicemail of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler had been hacked, with some messages deleted, were "disgusting".

But he said an inquiry must wait until police investigations were over - Labour says it should be set up sooner.

Meanwhile News Corporation chief Rupert Murdoch said the allegations were "deplorable and unacceptable".

But he stood by News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks, who was editor of the News of the World at the time, and has faced calls for her resignation.

Mr Murdoch, the head of News Corporation, the newspaper's parent company, said in a statement: "I have made clear that our company must fully and proactively cooperate with the police in all investigations and that is exactly what News International has been doing and will continue to do under Rebekah Brooks' leadership."

He added that he was "committed to addressing these issues fully".


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-14036673

The Daily Telegraph has learnt that the personal details of the families of servicemen who died on the front line have been found in the files of Glenn Mulcaire, the private detective working for the Sunday tabloid.

The disclosure that grieving relatives of war dead were targets for the newspaper prompted anger among military charities, who said it was a “disgusting and indefensible assault on privacy”.

The Metropolitan Police is facing growing calls from the families of murder victims, those killed in terrorist attacks and those who died in natural disasters, such as the Indonesian tsunami, to disclose if they were targets.

Rebekah Brooks, the former editor of the News of the World and now chief executive of News International, its parent company, faced calls from Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, to step down.

Yesterday The Daily Telegraph disclosed that families of victims of the July 7 bombings were targets for Mulcaire in the days after the atrocity in 2005.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... World.html

Later in the morning I got something I had been looking forward to for ages, copies of the Sunday Times and the News of the World newspapers. The Sunday times is the worlds greatest paper, bar none. It’s political coverage is superb, its editorials persuasive, its commentary apt, and it’s supplements give you a whole days reading. It covers everything, and anything.

The News of the World has tits in it.

Hen found the News of the World fascinating, she thought it was just like a newspaper, but for morons. "The pope dies, but instead of that major event, they have on the front page some footballers wife*, some absolute bimbo. Why? Because she's been on a shopping spree! What the fuck??"


*Colleen Rooney.

she thought it was just like a newspaper, but for morons.