Rupert Murdoch’s media giant News International could face a judicial inquiry after a highly critical parliamentary report today accuses senior executives at its top-selling newspaper of concealing the truth about the extent of illegal phone hacking by its journalists.

The 167-page report by a cross-party select committee is withering about the conduct of the News of the World, with one MP saying its crimes “went to the heart of the British establishment, in which police, military royals and government ministers were hacked on a near industrial scale”.

MPs condemned the “collective amnesia” and “deliberate obfuscation” by NoW executives who gave evidence to them, and said it was inconceivable that only a few people at the paper knew about the practice.

The culture, media and sport select committee was also damning of the police, saying Scotland Yard should have broadened its original investigation in 2006, and not just focused on Clive Goodman, the NoW’s royal reporter.

… more at The Guardian

Update: The Libdems have released a statement demanding a judicial inquiry:

This report blows a gaping hole in the News of the World’s line that only a sole rogue reporter was involved in illegal hacking of phones, and reveals enormous worries about the feeble response of the Metropolitan Police in investigating what was clearly widespread illegal activity.

There are very serious issues at stake here for the privacy of the citizen and the report highlights deep concern at the weak reaction to these illegal intrusions by News International, the Press Complaints Commission, the Met and the Information Commissioner.

The only alternative to get to the bottom of what actually went on at the News of the World is a judicial inquiry so that a judge can insist on information and can draw out the lessons if we are to avoid such wholesale abuse of privacy again.

Update 2 Benedict Brogan puts his tin-foil hat on and starts spinning.

Tom Watson MP hits back in the comments:

If you’d wanted to know when I knew about the bullying claims, why didn’t you call or email before you wrote this blog post?

I knew at the weekend about Mr Rawnsley’s book. Frankly, I’m out of the loop these days – not remotely interested in the usual Westminster conspiracy theories like the one you cast above.

The reason the amendment was tabled was because of the complete difference in approach to the employment issue between Mulcaire and Goodman (jailed for criminal offences yet paid off by News International before an employment case) and poor old Matt Driscoll (bullied at work and had to fight all the way for a record compensation). If you read the report in full, you might understand the context.

Ands if you’d bothered to ask me, I would have told you why I moved the amendment. You’re a professional journalist not a ham blogger. Next time, at least check before you make these insidious suggestions.

Update 3: The full report is now online (PDF). The phone-tapping bit starts at page 96.

This from page 100:

422. Mark Lewis also told us that, during his conversations with the Metropolitan Police at the time of the Gordon Taylor case, a Detective Sergeant Maberly had put the number of people affected by the phone tapping at 6,000. Mr Lewis went on to say that ‘it was not clear to me whether that was 6,000 phones which had been hacked, or 6,000 people including the people who had left messages’.389 Assistant Commissioner Yates, however, referred to only a handful of victims,390 while Detective Chief Superintendent Williams told us that: “I suppose the honest answer is we do not know”.

Subsequently, in answer to a Freedom of Information request, the Metropolitan Police confirmed that there were 91 individuals whose pin numbers were recorded in the material which they had seized. This does not however prove that only 91 individuals were targeted; how many of those pin numbers were accurate, and the number of individuals with default pin settings which might not be individually recorded, is not known.

The request came from the Guardian, which also reported being told by three mobile phone companies that they had traced over 100 customers, from numbers passed to them by the police, whose voicemails had been called

And more later:

439. We have seen no evidence that Andy Coulson knew that phone-hacking was taking place. However, that such hacking took place reveals a serious management failure for which as editor he bore ultimate responsibility, and we believe that he was correct to accept this and resign.

440. Evidence we have seen makes it inconceivable that no-one else at the News of the World, bar Clive Goodman, knew about the phone-hacking. It is unlikely, for instance, that Ross Hindley (later Hall) did not know the source of the material he was transcribing and was not acting on instruction from superiors. We cannot believe that the newspaper’s newsroom was so out of control for this to be the case.

441. The idea that Clive Goodman was a “rogue reporter” acting alone is also directly contradicted by the Judge who presided at the Goodman and Mulcaire trial. In his summing up, Mr Justice Gross, the presiding judge, said of Glenn Mulcaire: “As to Counts 16 to 20 [relating to the phone-hacking of Max Clifford, Simon Hughes MP, Andrew Skylett, Elle Macpherson and Gordon Taylor], you had not dealt with Goodman but with others at News International.”

Reader comments

1. Michael Hanley

   RT @libcon: Select Committee slams News of the World and Info. Commissioner over phone-tapping http://bit.ly/clyFnR

2. Liberal Conspiracy

   Select Committee slams News of the World and Info. Commissioner over phone-tapping http://bit.ly/clyFnR

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