UK tabloid cleared of phone-hacking charges
Posted by Lisette García on November 9, 2009 at 10:58 AM
News of the World, known for publishing salacious details of celebrities' lives, has been cleared of charges it hacked the mobile telephones of various subjects in search of bombshell coverage, Agence France-Presse today reported.
The investigation by the UK Press Complaints Commission followed The Guardian's report in July that Rupert Murdoch's News Group Newspapers, which publishes News of the World, had paid out more than £1 million to settle legal cases that threatened to reveal evidence of the tabloid's repeated use of criminal methods to get stories.
The investigation by the UK Press Complaints Commission followed The Guardian's report in July that Rupert Murdoch's News Group Newspapers, which publishes News of the World, had paid out more than £1 million to settle legal cases that threatened to reveal evidence of the tabloid's repeated use of criminal methods to get stories.
In August 2006, a News of the World editor and a private investigator were jailed after members of the royal family told Scotland Yard that certain stories about them must have been sourced from voicemail messages on their mobile phones, The Guardian today reported.
However, in today's dismissal, The Press Commission seemed confident that past criminality was not conclusive of current behaviour and that The News of the World had indeed mended its ways, according to a press release the organisation posted on its Web site today. "The Commission is satisfied that - so far as it is possible to tell - its work aimed at improving the integrity of undercover journalism has played its part in raising standards in this area," the statement said.
While various enactments in force throughout the world make it generally illegal to surreptitiously intercept communications anywhere, there is some question whether the relevant statute cited in the News of the World case actually applied to a stored voicemail message, Head of Legal blog in July observed.
However, in today's dismissal, The Press Commission seemed confident that past criminality was not conclusive of current behaviour and that The News of the World had indeed mended its ways, according to a press release the organisation posted on its Web site today. "The Commission is satisfied that - so far as it is possible to tell - its work aimed at improving the integrity of undercover journalism has played its part in raising standards in this area," the statement said.
While various enactments in force throughout the world make it generally illegal to surreptitiously intercept communications anywhere, there is some question whether the relevant statute cited in the News of the World case actually applied to a stored voicemail message, Head of Legal blog in July observed.
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: UK tabloid cleared of phone-hacking charges.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.editorsweblog.org/mt/mt-tb.cgi/19764
Leave a comment