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Subscribe to RSSLONDON – The scandal that has shaken Rupert Murdoch's media empire in Britain has taken a new twist, with police saying that messages missing from a murdered girl’s cell phone could have been deleted automatically rather than being erased by journalists trying to create more space for new calls.
Outrage over allegations that News of the World staffers had deleted the messages while police were searching for 13-year-old Milly Dowler – revealed earlier this year in an article in The Guardian newspaper – contributed to the closure of the tabloid, Murdoch's largest-circulation publication, in July 2011. Apart from the demise of the paper, the public outcry caused by the revelations resulted in the setting up of a public inquiry looking into the behavior of the press.
Dowler had been missing for a few days when activity on the phone’s message system gave her family false hope that the girl was alive and checking her voicemail. Her body was found about six months after she went missing, in March 2002.
However, Glenn Mulcaire, the private detective at the center of the scandal who was employed by the News of the World to help journalists hack phones, has always denied he was responsible for deleting the messages, which was alleged to have been done in order to free up space in Dowler’s mailbox.
And on Monday police backed his statement. Police officers told the Levenson Inquiry into media ethics and standards that they do not have evidence that Mulcaire or the paper’s journalists did the deleting.
One explanation is that the voicemail messages were deleted by the mobile phone provider as their time expired.
"It is conceivable that News International journalists deleted the voicemails, but the Metropolitan Police Service have no evidence to support that,” Neil Garnham of the Metropolitan Police testified in a statement to the inquiry Monday. He added that the “most likely explanation” was that the messages were automatically removed after 72 hours since that was "a standard automatic function of that voicemail box system at the time.”
‘The Fake Sheikh’
Also featured at the inquiry Monday was testimony by two of the News of the World's most well-known former reporters. (Previous witnesses include actor Hugh Grant, “Harry Potter” author JK Rowling and the actress Sienna Miller).
The first, Mazher Mahmood, known as the “the Fake Sheikh” for famously disguising himself as a Middle-Eastern businessman and recording conversations with corrupt individuals, claimed his investigations had led to the imprisonment of more than 260 criminals. But his success, he said, had also resulted in multiple death-threats. For this reason his identity was protected at the hearing: journalists were not allowed to attend and the usual video feed from the hearing was shut down (only his voice could be heard).
Mahmood defended practices at the newspaper, saying that the “ends justified the means” when a criminal was arrested as result of their reporting. But he admitted processes to ensure a story was both in the public interest and the source was credible were not as developed at the News of the World as they are at the newspaper where he now works, The Sunday Times (also part of the Murdoch empire). And, though he acknowledged using several covert practices, he denied any knowledge of phone hacking at his former paper.
The second ex-News of the World journalist to appear, Neville Thurlbeck, did not face any questions on phone hacking because he had been arrested in connection with the case and could have been in danger of self-incrimination.
Like Mahmood, he defended practices at the paper, including the kiss-and-tell reports of an affair involving soccer star David Beckham. He said the methods involved in getting the story were justified since the soccer player was trading on his image as a devoted family man to cash-in on huge sponsorships and advertising deals. He confirmed that the woman involved had received a six-figure sum for her story.
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I wonder how much Murdoch paid them to say that?
There is NO EXCUSE for ANY COMPANY to engage in spying on people in their time of grief. The Murdoch empire was built on deceptive underhanded actions. It just took this poor girls death and MURDOCH'S dirty actions to cause people to become aware of his tactics. His lifelong actions are viewed by some as being the way they would like themselves to be, but I can honestly say I can rest and sleep at night and not be worried about if someone is plotting to take what I have. A miserable man with no hope of peace in his life. He deserves the crap that is about to hit him, I just wish it included a 50 year prison sentence.
Yes, Murdoch was paying them before this incident to give the news insider information. MSM, you've got no story.
Since where voice messages deleted after three days. I've never had a voice message deleted automatically by my cell carrier. I don't see any collaborating statements from the carrier that this may have been the case. This sound like an attempt to get the offenders off.
Maybe "that" voicemail system at "that" time doesn't mean "all" voicemail systems at "all" times.
Yes, that is it entirley. Some hired ad agency is working on this as I write.
Let's take a stab at this.... call made.... no one answers.... voice mail left.
Call made.... no one answers.... voice mail left.... until voice mail box full and no more messages can be recorded.... thus usually stating that voice mail is full unable to leave any more messages....
I thought that the only person who can delete those messages has to be the person who owns the phone and for the owner of the phone to even access the voice mail must first put in their pin number.....
So to delete those messages the owner must put in pin number and listen to the calls and then save, re-save and/or delete messages as prompted by the phone.....
Seeing that the young girl was unable to access her phone to listen, save or delete the messages in voice mail, who gave anyone the authority to delete any of the messages?
If the messages deleted automatically, then how was it possible for anyone to know how many messages were in the voice mail in the first place or the content of those messages.... other than the parents and the police? (wasn't the parents informed of the deleted messages after the fact?)
How was it possible to know that messages were deleted... if the phone was not being monitored by the police?
Isn't the only way the messages could have been deleted automatically is if the messages in the voice mail were accessed i.e. listened to, in the first place and the person had not instructed the phone to save these messages. Even if no instructions were given regarding save or delete, don't the phone simply save messages and remind the person to clean up their vmail perhaps. Isn't it then that those calls may sort of drop off/auto delete after a while... so that other messages can be left?
If the phone company deleted the messages.... did they do so even knowing that an investigation into the disappearance of a minor child was ungoing? Why would they do that? Wouldn't/couldn't they be deleting evidence or possible evidence, or possible persons of interest/ for enquiry?
Someone illegally accessed the phone using the child's pin number..... 1. the parents would not delete any messages as in these circumstances the parents tend to hang onto everything and they stated they did not.... 2. the phone probably was in the possession of the police and being monitored by them....and they did not state that they deleted any of the messages...yet (snicker) 3. why would the police delete anything when they probably had a tap on it ( and making back up copies of the messages etc) and it was possible evidence etc.... 4. The phone company did an automatic delete? Really? Why, especially in a missing minor case that was in all the news?
One other thing.....were these voice mail saved to the phone and would remain there until the year next century...or not or what?
Very strange...... very strange indeed..... If I were the telephone company I would not be so quick to agree that I did an auto delete on voice mail that could be or could have been or even was probably evidence in an ongoing missing child case at that time..... LOL
On the other hand the deleting of the messages- auto delete or not - does not take precidence over the fact that the phone was illegally accessed by the tabloid.... as it appears that neither the parents nor the police gave the tabloids the authority access or to listen to those messages in the first place......from the look of things....
Bubble bubble boil and trouble.... the more we spin the more we stumble... bringing more to the surface than before.... stirring up dregs that would have been better left untouched.... LOL
This old man thinks that old man should be taken out back and beat to within a 1/4 inch of his life...!!!!!
MSNBC is tabloid journalism.
Yes, but at the same time they let people know that MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES are rampant with Faux News viewers. You can bury your head in the sand or you can help society, but one thing is CERTAIN, WE WILL put you teabag republicraps where you belong, in a SANITARIUM.
What the hell does this discussion have to do with Republicans or members of Tea Party??? Get a life.
I have about given up!!!
Word soup in every story and every government on both sides of the pond. !. did these people hack the voice mail? YES. Are there laws against this? yes!! Should News corp be broken up due to criminal activity of a U.S. company overseas? Yes. Should this law apply to every overseas country doing business with and in the U. S. ? Of course!!!!!!
No EMAILS, chat, messages are ever DELETED. The NSA/SIS has admitted Project Echelon captures EVERY IP packet that comes to the 13 Root DNS computers. NSA/SIS fessed up to that in 1999. I'd guess by now hundreds of agencies are archiving all IP packets. If baffles me that every American doesn't know that all emails are archived by the intelligence agencies and the media corporations separately!
Rupert Murdoch has been thourougly discredited, his son even lied in front of Parliament.
I have never had voice message delete automatically and even if you could set up the phone to do so a teenage girl never would. I don't know why the UK Police are still trying to cover for Murdoch and his evil empire but it is becoming old.
Smoke all these lies out until they hang...I have ignored many phone messages because I don't care who calls...They fill up until I listen to them when they are full....Then people can add more...They obviously listened to them...Causing open space because they get deleted when you play them...It is not an automatic function...The choice is said on the phone..."To delete this message press 4"...I do...and they did....These people are dirty scounderels...I say fry them in the courts...They are the lowest of the low...Giving false hope to gain a story...POSMF's!
What does it all boil down to??? The news should only report the news and stop making it. Nothing more need be said.
The propaganda machine , called journalism, is owned by the very rich ,unscrupulous people who manipulate the public opinion by selecting comments they like and deleting "politically incorrect" statements. Another way of shaping public opinion is by tabloid journalism like Murdoch's. The media propaganda machine ,unfortunately, uses lies and deception to orchestrate endless wars that the taxpayers pay for and the 1% get richer. Unless that is changed ,there will not be the DEMOCRACY that is so much talked about ,but not practiced. The media is supposed to protect Democracy , not squash it. Personally, I am disgusted with such a waste of a powerful tool for Democracy.