BRITISH DEPUTY prime minister Nick Clegg has said the Rupert Murdoch-owned News International will never be absolved for hacking phone messages left for murder victim Milly Dowler, despite a £3 million (€3.45 million) compensation and costs offer to the family.
“I don’t think any response, frankly, can absolve News International and the journalists who pried into the Dowlers’ family privacy at such a terrible time. I don’t think anything can absolve them for what they did. It was just so utterly grotesque,” he said.
News of the Worldjournalists used a private investigator to hack into the voicemail messages left on Millie Dowler's mobile phone in the days after she went missing in 2002 and to delete old messages to make room for more.
The compensation offer, which includes a £1 million personal contribution from Mr Murdoch, is an effort by his company to restore some of its reputation. However, senior executives are in line for further tough questioning by MPs and a judicial inquiry in the coming months.
Mr Murdoch’s money will go to an agreed charity, while the £2 million will cover damages and the Dowlers’ legal costs. The full package has been approved by Mr Murdoch’s son James, the chairman of News International, News Corp’s UK subsidiary.
Last night, lawyers in London said the family of the murder victim would not have received anything like £3 million from a court, even though an award for exemplary damages would have been expected if the case had come to a full hearing. Exemplary damages have never been awarded in a privacy case taken under the Human Rights Act, which came into force in the UK in 2000, but they are allowable to punish an offender who deliberately invaded privacy for profit.
Actor Sienna Miller settled her action against the News of the Worldin May for £100,000. In comparison, ex-Formula One chief executive Max Mosley received £60,000 in his case against the paper. Former footballer Andy Gray settled for just £20,000. Hundreds more are already taking legal action against News International or considering it, so the £20 million budget put aside to extricate the company from its difficulties is now almost certainly too small.
Last week London's high court granted approval to Sheila Henry, whose son Christian was killed in the July 7th, 2005, terrorist attacks in London, for her action claiming the News of the Worldhacked her son's messages. The case will go to court in January.
The Dowlers’ settlement is more than three times that paid by News International to the former chief executive of the Professional Footballers’ Association, Gordon Taylor, who received £700,000.
News International executives and journalists will feature in the upcoming Leveson inquiry, which begins next month. It will examine the behaviour of the British press, the police and politicians with regard to phone hacking. In the second element of his work, Lord Justice Brian Leveson will consider measures to ensure it does not happen again.
Harry Potter author JK Rowling is one of 46 people who have been granted core-participant status at the inquiry. She won a case in 2008 to protect the privacy of her children after photographs were published in a Scottish newspaper.
Scotland Yard last night dropped its bid to force the Guardiannewspaper to reveal confidential sources for stories relating to phone hacking.
The Yard’s attempt to identify potential police leaks was widely condemned, with the newspaper’s editor Alan Rusbridger describing it as “vindictive and disproportionate”. A spokesman said that the Metropolitan police had taken legal advice and as a result had decided not to pursue, at this time, the application for production orders scheduled for hearing on Friday, September 23rd.