| Phone hacking: CPS may bring corporate charges against Murdoch publisher |
Metropolitan police hands over file of evidence on Rupert Murdoch’s British newspaper arm to Crown Prosecution Service
The Crown Prosecution Service is considering bringing corporate charges against Rupert Murdoch’s British newspaper publisher over phone hacking, it has emerged.
The Metropolitan police handed over a file of evidence on News International – now renamed News UK – to the CPS for consideration after an investigation stretching back to 2011, when the News of the World was closed at the height of the scandal.
“We have received a full file of evidence for consideration of corporate liability charges relating to the Operation Weeting phone-hacking investigation,” a spokeswoman confirmed.
The file was transferred on 23 July and reignites the controversy for Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, News UK’s parent company, which believed it had been through the worst and come out the other side after an eight-month trial of former News of the World journalists that concluded in June 2014.
News UK: Mike Darcey departure opens door for Rebekah Brooks return
It is believed the company is poised to announce that News International’s former chief executive, Rebekah Brooks, who was cleared of all charges, was to return to News Corp.
The CPS decision comes six months after the US department of justice told Murdoch’s company it would not face charges in the US.
The Metropolitan police confirmed on Friday: “On 23 July following an investigation into phone hacking at the News of the World, detectives from Op Weeting submitted a file to the CPS for their consideration.” The CPS did not specify under which law it would consider charges.
One source said the main area of law pertinent to the police investigation was section 79 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, which concerns criminal liability of directors.
An offence has to be “proved to have been committed with the consent or connivance of, or to be attributable to any neglect on the part of: (a) a director, manager, secretary or other similar officer of the body corporate or (b) any person who was purporting to act in such capacity”.
In 2012, the Met’s then head of the Weeting investigation, Sue Akers, sent a letter to Lord Grabiner, the chairman of News Corp’s management standards committee, set up in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal, to investigate alleged illegal practices at News International, advising him that there was a possibility corporate charges could be brought against Murdoch’s companies.
“It does not surprise me that a file has been sent, just that it has taken so long. Decisions that were taken very high up have yet to be analysed. Ultimately people have to look at the corporate culture, the directors and the lawyers, not just the people at the coalface,” said Mark Lewis, a partner in Seddons law film, who represented many of the phone-hacking victims in the civil courts.
A source familiar with the original investigation said there could be an element of politics in the transfer of the file. “My best guess is because nobody in the police has the bottle to draw the line under this, they have just passed the buck on the CPS.”
Brooks, a former News of the World editor, was found not guilty of hacking and all related charges in June 2014. Also cleared was former managing editor of the News of the World Stuart Kuttner.
Brooks’ deputy, Andy Coulson, who went on to become editor of the paper, was found guilty after admitting to knowledge of the hacking of former home secretary David Blunkett’s phone.
Three other former newsdesk executives, Greg Miskiw, Neville Thurlbeck and James Weatherup, pleaded guilty to a conspiracy to hack phones as did the contractor Glenn Mulcaire.
At a later point, a fourth newsdesk executive Ian Edmondson also pleaded guilty.
The latest development in the phone-hacking saga will beirritating to those at the top of the corporate structure. However, although the company declined to comment, insiders said executives were relaxed about the transfer of the file.
The financial burden of the hacking saga continues to climb. In the past five years News Corp has spent £332m on aggregate fees, costs and expenses arising out of the scandal.
It has settled 377 compensation claims lodged by celebrities, politicians and public figures including Cherie Blair, Jude Law and former cabinet ministers Blunkett and Tessa Jowell.
The hacking led to a second trial for Coulson in Scotland earlier this year. He was cleared of perjury when a Scottish judge dismissed the case in which he was accused of lying about his knowledge of phone hacking when he appeared in the trial of Scottish Socialist party leader Tommy Sheridan in 2010.
The imminent appointment of Brooks to a senior News Corp job in the UK four years after she quit the company has been rumoured for at least six months. Sources say Murdoch offered her the job some time ago but she turned it down.
It appears it will be announced as soon as next month as part of a reshuffle that will include the departure of Mike Darcey, chief executive of News UK, and the appointment of a new editor for the Sun.
Some sources say Darcey “has been looking relaxed”, but one senior figure said he was “cutting a forlorn figure these days with Rebekah in the office every day measuring for curtains”.
Tony Gallagher, the deputy editor of the Daily Mail, has been linked to the Sun’s editor job, but those familiar with the executive and Brooks are sceptical about such a move.
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