• 3 months ago
Panorama.S2014E25.Hacking.Power.Corruption.And.Lies
Transcript
00:00Tonight, the scandal that reached into the heart of the British establishment.
00:09It's about power. Power and the abuse of power.
00:14It's centred on Rupert Murdoch's media empire.
00:18Now, one of his editors, Andy Coulson, faces jail for phone hacking.
00:23He denied it for years and ended up in David Cameron's Downing Street.
00:28He showed wretched judgement,
00:31and it will permanently damage his reputation as British Prime Minister.
00:37David Cameron's friend Rebecca Brooks has been cleared of any involvement
00:41in phone hacking and bribing public officials.
00:44Rupert Murdoch has always stood by his well-connected protégé.
00:49She was a political animal, without a shadow of a doubt.
00:53She was able to collect the right sort of people.
00:57Three senior News of the World journalists had already pleaded guilty
01:02to criminally targeting people's private lives.
01:05Phone hacking was unleashed on the rich and the famous, but no-one was off limits.
01:11Hacking doesn't just happen to celebrities, it happens a lot to real people.
01:17Your whole world is completely turned upside down.
01:22Even people under police protection weren't safe.
01:26For that information to get into the hands of journalists
01:30is potentially putting people's lives at risk.
01:33For years, the police sat on the evidence that eventually brought down the News of the World.
01:38To put you into the dark and say you're just a moaning mini kind of thing,
01:43when they actually knew, and while they were publicly denying it,
01:47then you really do get sick and duff about that.
01:50Phone hacking was the scandal covered up by News International for years.
01:55Now Panorama reveals how police and politicians let them get away with it.
02:00We were all being told that what we had was a democracy,
02:04but in fact we didn't have anything of the sort.
02:19Imagine someone listening in to your telephone messages.
02:24Yeah, hello, it's Glenn.
02:26Glenn, how are you?
02:27Hello, mate, just a very quick one.
02:29Imagine someone does it day after day after day.
02:34Put his number in.
02:36Yeah.
02:37It asks you for the pin, then put his number back in.
02:40Yeah.
02:41And there's three messages on there.
02:43Imagine it happening to you.
02:46On that shred of paper was David Beckham's name,
02:52and underneath that was my name, which was quite shocking, really.
02:58Claire has been violated.
03:00She would be just so shocked if she was to know what went on after her death.
03:13This is the man who secretly listened in on not just those lives,
03:17but thousands of others.
03:19Master hacker Glenn Mulcair.
03:22Mulcair himself is a frantic kind of character.
03:24He's working very, very hard.
03:26I mean, there was an example came out in the evidence
03:28where he was hacking Kerry Katona's voicemail on Christmas Day.
03:35Rupert Murdoch's company, News International,
03:37paid him a million pounds to hack for journalists.
03:42During the five years he was working for them,
03:44they were tasking him at least once every day, seven days a week, for five years.
03:51But one story changed everything.
03:53It laid bare just how powerful and arrogant Rupert Murdoch's company had become.
04:05In March 2002, a 13-year-old schoolgirl, Millie Dowler,
04:09was snatched as she walked home from a Surrey school.
04:14We're devastated. We're just so desperately worried
04:17and we just want to have Millie back home. It hurts so much.
04:21While Millie's parents made public pleas for their daughter's safe return,
04:25Glenn Mulcair secretly hacked into her phone messages.
04:29He found one from a recruitment agency in Shropshire,
04:33apparently offering Millie a job interview.
04:37We're ringing because we've got some interviews starting.
04:39Can you call me back? Thanks. Bye.
04:43The hacked message convinced the news of the world that Millie was alive.
04:48You might imagine that a normal human being, with any sense of feeling,
04:53would say to the Dowler family or to the police,
04:56we found Millie Dowler, but they chose not to do that
04:59because their story on a Sunday was more important to them
05:04than putting the family's mind at ease.
05:08The hack was just the start.
05:10The news of the world now thought it had that week's exclusive
05:13and it sent six reporters and photographers to Telford.
05:19When you realise you've been targeted by a tabloid newspaper,
05:23it's intimidating. It's quite frightening.
05:29In Telford, Mark Hancocks and his mother, Valerie,
05:32ran the recruitment agency which had left the message on Millie's phone.
05:36It would later become clear the message was never meant for Millie.
05:40They'd simply dialled the wrong number.
05:44Even though I knew she couldn't be working for us as she was only 13,
05:48I felt sick that the news of the world was on the doorstep.
05:54Within minutes of turning a reporter away from his home,
05:58Mark was surprised to receive a call from one of the paper's most senior figures.
06:04I was totally shocked to get a phone call from Stuart Kuttner,
06:08the managing editor of News of the World.
06:10He truly believed that Millie Dowler was working for our recruitment agency.
06:16The agency's checks revealed, as expected, there was no Millie Dowler on their books.
06:28But it didn't stop attempts to damage to Hancocks' business.
06:33A reporter approached the manager of their biggest client on a golf course
06:38and told him they were employing underage girls.
06:43He wasn't amused, as you can imagine.
06:46So he summons me, and I can remember driving down there thinking,
06:52all this hard work that I've done, we're going to lose it all.
06:58Desperate to get their story,
07:00the News of the World then played Millie's hack message to Surrey police,
07:04who were investigating her disappearance,
07:07and printed its content in early editions of the paper.
07:15It shows you so much about the News of the World,
07:17not just the ruthless decision in the beginning to keep that secret from the police,
07:21but then the arrogant aggression that we can tell the police we're breaking the law.
07:26And they won't bother to enforce it.
07:28And the worst thing of all, they were right.
07:33Surrey police accept the hacking of Millie's phone should have been investigated in 2002.
07:38It's yet to explain why it wasn't.
07:42In charge of the News of the World that week was deputy editor Andy Coulson.
07:46His boss, Rebecca Brooks, was on holiday
07:48and says she never knew the paper had listened to Millie's messages.
07:53But it would take nine years for what the News of the World did that week to be exposed.
08:03The News of the World is at the centre of new allegations of illegal phone hacking.
08:15Heaping shame and humiliation on Rupert Murdoch.
08:20Did you apologise to the Donald Trump?
08:26What happened showed the newspaper's contempt for the law, for the police
08:30and for a family which appeared to be getting in its way.
08:33This was the ugly face of Rupert Murdoch's empire.
08:41After 168 years, one of Britain's most famous newspapers was shut down in disgrace.
08:50CHEERING
08:52This is not where we wanted to be and it's not where we deserve to be.
08:59By the end, many felt the paper got its just desserts.
09:04I think the News of the World journalists grew incredibly arrogant
09:08in the last decade of the paper's life.
09:13Could we just have you stood together and then we'll go? Yeah.
09:17Behind the rise of the News of the World was the paper's owner,
09:20media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, and his protégé, Rebecca Brooks.
09:36Murdoch was the brash Australian who took Fleet Street by storm.
09:41What's your philosophy as a proprietor of a newspaper?
09:44To produce as good newspapers as possible and to sell as many of them as possible.
09:49Within 15 years, he bought up some of its most famous titles,
09:53including The Sun and The News of the World.
09:58His progress made easier when Margaret Thatcher bypassed rules on media ownership.
10:08By the late 80s, Rebecca Brooks had got her first job in newspapers.
10:12Tabloid reporter Charles Ray remembers her well.
10:17Obviously, the first thing you spotted straight off was the hair.
10:21I mean, it was the best hair I've seen on anybody.
10:24You know, it's just fantastic hair.
10:30She joined the News of the World as a researcher aged 21.
10:39Her rise was meteoric.
10:43Deputy Editor of the News of the World at 27.
10:49Deputy Editor of The Sun at 29.
10:53And that was just the beginning.
11:01She had this remarkable capacity to engage with anyone.
11:07And the more powerful you were,
11:10the more clever she was at finding some link to you.
11:19She was a political animal.
11:21She was able to collect the right sort of people.
11:25Rebecca Brooks and Rupert Murdoch were made for each other.
11:28She was a problem solver.
11:30She said, this is what we ought to do.
11:32Now, that's fantastically good for any boss.
11:41Together, they would wield enormous political influence.
11:45Politicians craved their backing.
11:56After four election defeats, Labour wanted some Murdoch magic.
12:04Can you come halfway around the world to talk to Rupert Murdoch and his men?
12:09Well, it's important, obviously,
12:11because this is a major conference of one of the largest media outlets in the world.
12:16The leader of the opposition was determined to have his moment in the sun.
12:21There was a lot of hostility in the past.
12:23I think it's important the Labour Party makes the case
12:26as to why, in a world of very great change,
12:29we are the best people to handle that change.
12:31But some Labour colleagues doubted the wisdom of courting Rupert Murdoch.
12:36I don't trust Murdoch, the son, and all his outfit,
12:39and I was always against a cosy...
12:42You could have a professional relationship,
12:44but it always suggested it was more than that, wasn't it?
12:47With the implication that we can help you win the election.
12:52It was help Tony Blair calculated he couldn't do without.
12:56His strategy landed him a political coup.
13:00This was the beginning of an incredibly incestuous close relationship
13:06between senior politicians and senior journalists,
13:11particularly on News International.
13:14Some senior journalists there broke the law to get stories,
13:18but their editor, Rebecca Brooks, needed only to rely on her charm.
13:23While new Labour settled into power,
13:25she settled in for cosy dinners with the new Prime Minister and his Chancellor.
13:31It became clear that Rebecca Brooks would have a dinner with Gordon Brown,
13:36tell him certain information of what she thinks Blair's told her.
13:39He would have a go at me, and the other way Blair would have a dinner,
13:42and he'd have a go at me for what Gordon's supposed to be doing.
13:45She was playing these two men off.
13:48Is it testable in many ways if you believe that journalism is about
13:52telling the truth and being beastly to people in power?
13:56For her, it became a form of social assent.
14:01It's not just whether they write the story,
14:03they're actively involved, playing the part in the politics,
14:07and she was right at the centre of it.
14:10News International seduced politicians with the tantalising promise of support,
14:18but its journalists had the power to make or break careers.
14:24At the news of the world, private detectives were being used
14:28to dig up the most confidential and sensitive of personal information.
14:39The journalist would act, say, upon a tip,
14:44give it to the news desk, who had certain contacts,
14:48that may be access to bank account details, phone accounts,
14:52they'd come back and say, yeah, you're right, write it.
14:59One man who would thrive in that culture was Andy Coulson.
15:02He was Rebecca Brooks' deputy at the News of the World and her secret lover.
15:07The 32-year-old was another rising News International star.
15:11His background was in showbiz reporting, an agenda his editor was keen to pursue.
15:17And now, the latest news. Andy Coulson is in the hot seat today.
15:21Andy Coulson had for years been the Sun's showbiz reporter and editor,
15:25which he wasn't shy of boasting about on children's TV.
15:29...editing bazaar, I got to interview pretty much all of my favourite stars,
15:33all the big names, Madonna, Spice Girls,
15:39Slice of Life, Arnold Schwarzenegger,
15:43Elton John.
15:46Sean Hall worked with Andy Coulson at the Sun in the 90s
15:49and for him at the News of the World in 2001.
15:53He claimed his boss was familiar with the use of private detectives.
15:58I'm sure Andy, well, I know he was aware of those practices,
16:04because at the end of the day, such is the culture that you're there to deliver.
16:14How journalists on the News of the World and other tabloids were getting stories
16:18was already of concern to Scotland Yard.
16:23Surveillance during a murder inquiry in 1999 revealed links between tabloids,
16:28including the News of the World, and a private eye business with criminal connections.
16:35It seemed like a little sort of cosy conspiracy, really,
16:40between journalists, ex-police officers, private detectives and serving officers.
16:47The firm was being used to channel payments from newspapers
16:51to corrupt police officers for leaks about celebrities and ongoing police investigations.
16:58I proposed that we ought to investigate,
17:02because my view was these people I described and others described
17:07as active corruptors of police officers.
17:09It was straightforward and complicated,
17:11and I expected the Met to come back and say,
17:15yep, we should do this, but I actually found the Met was very reticent to do that.
17:22He says this man, his then boss, Commander Andy Heyman,
17:25said no, an investigation would be too legally risky and complex.
17:29At the time, I felt he was making a heartfelt and honest assessment
17:36of the situation and the risks to the Metropolitan Police
17:41of investigating national newspapers.
17:44We tried to ask Andy Heyman about this, but he didn't want to respond.
17:53In court, Rebecca Brooks said the News of the World hired lots of private detectives
17:58to track down paedophiles as part of her campaign
18:01to name and shame convicted sex offenders after the murder of Sarah Payne.
18:07The paper is on the side of protecting children and not the rights of paedophiles,
18:11and I strongly believe we're on the side of the right, the public are behind us.
18:18But what kind of private detectives was the News of the World hiring?
18:23Yeah, hello, it's Glenn.
18:25Glenn, how are you, mate? Just a very quick one.
18:28One was master hacker Glenn Mulcair,
18:30a former footballer who scored AFC Wimbledon's first ever goal.
18:37He started working for the News of the World in the late 90s.
18:42Journalist Nick Davis believes he was hacking into phones even then.
18:47By around 97, 98, he's come up with the voicemail trick.
18:51I don't know where he got that from,
18:53but he starts doing that for News of the World as early as 97, 98.
18:57You need to dial 7973 100 123...
19:02By 2001, Glenn Mulcair had a five-year contract,
19:05and he ended up being paid more than £100,000 a year.
19:10Rebecca Brooks said in court she didn't know he was working for the News of the World.
19:15She didn't know he was working for the paper.
19:22In 2003, Rebecca Brooks landed the biggest job in tabloid newspapers,
19:27editor of The Sun.
19:36Just two months later, she let slip that News International
19:39would go as far as paying police officers.
19:43Just the one element of whether you ever pay the police for information.
19:47We have paid the police for information in the past, and it's been...
19:51And will you do it in the future?
19:54We operate within the code and within the law,
19:56and if there's a clear public interest,
19:58then the same holds for private detectives, for subterfuge,
20:01for video bags, whatever you want to talk about.
20:03I thought Rebecca Brooks and Andy Coulson had basically made
20:06an amazing, extraordinary confession.
20:10It's illegal for police officers to receive payments?
20:13No, no, no, we don't. I just said within the law.
20:16OK, thanks, Chris. You've got your answer.
20:18Cheers. Thanks very much.
20:20Everybody thought, my God, Brian, what have you done?
20:23I mean, you've stirred up a hornet's nest.
20:28But the MP's efforts to stir it up even more fell on deaf ears.
20:33I tried raising it with newspapers, nobody would run it.
20:36I tried raising it with other members of the committee,
20:39they weren't interested.
20:42I tried raising it with successive Home Secretaries,
20:45they simply, they just batted it off and said
20:48it was up to the police to investigate.
20:50Isn't it one of our CID fellas?
20:53I raised it with the police, they wouldn't touch it.
20:57Now, look, Monty Green, you try this on again and you'll get into trouble.
21:07Tony Blair swept to power for a third time in 2005
21:10with, once again, the backing of the Murdoch machine.
21:17But the following year there were rumblings of discontent
21:20within the Labour Party.
21:25A group of MPs wanted Tony Blair to make it clear
21:28when he would stand aside for Gordon Brown.
21:31They were branded a gang of weasels by Rebecca Brooks' son.
21:37But there was a more sinister and intimidating element
21:40that I'd not really prepared myself for,
21:42which was the sort of sense that the news international newspapers
21:46were in one political camp, and that was Tony Blair's.
21:52At the News Of The World, Andy Coulson was now editor.
21:58Reporters were under increasing pressure to deliver exclusives.
22:02People were scared, right?
22:04So if you've got to get a story, you've got to get it.
22:08And you have to get that by whatever means.
22:12Andy Coulson's editorship has been described
22:15as the era of industrial phone hacking.
22:18At the heart of it, Glenn Mulcair.
22:29No-one, it seems, was off limits.
22:337-7 casualties.
22:37Murder victims.
22:39Hacking doesn't just happen to celebrities.
22:42It happens a lot to real people.
22:45Your whole world is completely turned upside down.
22:50Patricia Bernal's daughter, Claire,
22:52worked as a beauty consultant at Harvey Nichols in London.
22:55In September 2005, she was shot dead in the store by a stalker.
23:01That same day of Claire's murder,
23:04the News Of The World stuffed a packet of cash
23:06through the family letterbox, seeking an exclusive interview.
23:1024 hours later, Glenn Mulcair hacked into Claire's phone.
23:16Glenn Mulcair had been told to gather information
23:21a day after her death,
23:24and they had a phone call from Claire.
23:29I had access to my dead daughter,
23:35and to me that was just the most distressing thing.
23:42They would have heard personal messages.
23:47Claire was a very private person,
23:50and I'll always feel angry about that.
23:55Claire's mother knew nothing about her daughter's phone being hacked
23:58until the police told her six years later.
24:01If they think about their own families, their own children,
24:05to cross that line and to do what they did,
24:09it's got to... It's obscene.
24:15So did Andy Coulson know hacking was endemic?
24:19He claimed he didn't at his trial,
24:21but he finally did admit for the first time he knew it had happened.
24:26In 2004, his chief reporter Neville Thirlbeck
24:29played him intimate recordings left by David Blunkett,
24:33who was then Home Secretary, to Mr Blunkett's then lover.
24:38Andy Coulson told the court he didn't know accessing the messages was illegal,
24:42but he was shocked and angry that Neville Thirlbeck had hacked them
24:46and told him to stop immediately.
24:50But that didn't stop Andy Coulson travelling up to Sheffield
24:53to confront David Blunkett about the affair.
24:58It became very clear to me
25:00that something very strange had been going on.
25:04It never crossed David Blunkett's mind he was a victim of hacking,
25:07believing instead he'd been betrayed by someone close to him.
25:11And Andy Coulson gave nothing away.
25:14He was not prepared not only to give any kind of indication
25:19of where he'd obtained the information from,
25:22but any legitimacy in terms of the process he'd adopted.
25:29Despite promising he wouldn't damage him,
25:31two days later the story was splashed all over the News Of The World's front page.
25:38The Cabinet Minister became tabloid fodder and resigned four months later.
25:44The police later found in a News Of The World safe
25:47recordings of 330 voicemail messages David Blunkett had left for his lover.
25:53I came as close as anyone could ever come
25:57to having a breakdown without actually having one.
26:00In fact, I actually think it probably took me two years to really recover.
26:05The News Of The World hadn't named his lover,
26:08but the next day Rebecca Brooks' son did.
26:11Even that didn't stop David Blunkett socialising with its editor.
26:16I don't regret that because that had nothing to do with my willingness
26:22to have a sensible, friendly relationship with them.
26:29David Blunkett was later hired by The Sun as a columnist
26:33and he became a paid advisor to News International on social responsibility.
26:39By 2005, the News Of The World's front-page exclusives
26:43had won Andy Coulson Newspaper of the Year.
26:47But then a small story by the Royal editor Clive Goodman
26:51sowed the seeds of its downfall.
26:54Royal aides had long suspected their phones were being hacked.
26:59The story of Prince William's knee injury confirmed it.
27:02The information could be used to help the Royal family
27:05The knee injury confirmed it.
27:07The information could only have come from their phones.
27:12You're tripping the alarm bell in the one group of people in this country
27:16who had so much prestige that the police weren't going to ignore them.
27:19It's the Royal family. They're going to go after it.
27:22Within the past hour, two men, including the Royal editor of the News Of The World,
27:25have been charged with intercepting telephone voicemail messages.
27:30Clive Goodman and hacker Glenn Mulcair both pleaded guilty.
27:33Both were jailed.
27:35Editor Andy Coulson said he took responsibility and he resigned.
27:40News International insisted its Royal editor was a lone wolf, a rogue reporter.
27:48It was 2007, four years before the furore of a phone hacking properly erupted.
27:53But the judge seemed convinced even then
27:56that Glenn Mulcair had been working with others at News International
27:59because he admitted to having hacked the phones of five other people,
28:03none of whom had any connection with the Royal family.
28:09The Met knew too, and much more besides,
28:12they'd already found the names of 400 hacking targets in Glenn Mulcair's notebooks.
28:19He's making notes about what numbers he's guarded,
28:22who he's talking to in the mobile phone company,
28:24and just so that he doesn't lose track,
28:26he got into the habit of writing the first name of whoever it was
28:30had tasked him in the top left-hand corner.
28:33They had this line of clues.
28:35It's Clive, it's Neville, it's James, it's Greg.
28:38Mulcair's notes are really the hand grenade in the middle of the room.
28:46The names on the list included victims of crime, celebrities, politicians,
28:51even the then Deputy Prime Minister John Prascott.
28:56But the Met told lawyers,
28:58reporting to the then Director of Public Prosecutions,
29:00that there was no evidence that the phone-hacking conspiracy went further.
29:07If we'd known the truth, that in fact the police were in possession of evidence
29:12that this went much wider, then we'd have acted upon that.
29:16If there were officers who knew that the answers were incorrect,
29:21it was reprehensible of them to keep quiet about that.
29:27The Met's counter-terrorism unit was heading the investigation
29:31in what was the busiest period in its history.
29:34The 11,000 pages seized from Glen Mulcair were not top priority.
29:39As soon as they realised that it went much wider,
29:42then it should have been passed to the Specialist Crime Directorate
29:46because they were far more of a fit with what they were doing
29:50than with what anti-terrorism or Royalty Protection were doing.
29:55But the case stayed with counter-terrorism.
29:58Its boss Andy Heyman's job involved having good relations with the media.
30:05But now the unit was investigating crimes by the media.
30:10I sense that there were relationships that had become quite personal
30:16because of the amount of interaction.
30:19I think some of them were very much in a social setting
30:23and I think that does create difficulties.
30:27Andy Heyman was not in day-to-day charge of the investigation
30:30but he was briefed about its progress.
30:37Before the Met knew the full extent of Glen Mulcair's activities,
30:41Andy Heyman and a senior press officer had dinner with Andy Coulson
30:45and another senior executive from the News of the World.
30:50Not to have that dinner, I think, would have been
30:54potentially more suspicious than to have it.
30:56Suspicious? Well...
31:00I don't know why you're laughing.
31:02Because we are astonished, Mr Heyman, at the way in which you are answering these questions.
31:05Well, I'm sorry, all I'm sure I can say to you is this,
31:08that we never, ever had a conversation that would have compromised an investigation.
31:12This initial phone hacking investigation
31:16could potentially lead to people very high up in the organisation
31:21being accused of criminal offences.
31:24For those very people to be meeting with senior officers
31:29who ultimately were responsible for that investigation
31:33is totally inappropriate.
31:37Andy Heyman's job meant he was a frequent visitor to Downing Street.
31:41When Glen Mulcair and Clive Goodman were arrested...
31:47..the acting Prime Minister was John Prescott.
31:50Yet he was never told his name was in Glen Mulcair's notes.
31:55He never told me. It's quite clear, looking at the timetable, he knew all the time.
31:59And to be working next to the guy who's done the investigation,
32:02who's got all the information, working with me on security matters,
32:06doesn't perhaps turn to me and say,
32:08what's your phone? What's your messages?
32:11Andy Heyman wouldn't respond to us.
32:13He has said he saw a list of names from Glen Mulcair's notes,
32:16but at the time there was no clear evidence
32:19more than a handful had actually been hacked.
32:24The police didn't read a word to John Prescott
32:27about him being a target of phone hacking,
32:29but there was someone they told.
32:31Astonishingly, it was Rebecca Brooks.
32:36Not only did officers tell her about John Prescott,
32:39they also told her she'd been targeted and much more besides,
32:43that they had a list of around 100 victims,
32:46but were unlikely to look at any other suspects without direct evidence.
32:55It shouldn't have happened because I think the organisation,
32:58certainly at that time, had to be seen as a potential suspect
33:02because the Met had not unravelled the mystery of who was involved.
33:06I would expect the Met to have been very cautious.
33:11The Met has now apologised for failing to contact all those
33:14who'd been targeted, including some of its own senior officers,
33:18but it still hasn't explained why it didn't do so.
33:21The difficulty for the Met is, by not answering that question,
33:26it allows people to speculate.
33:28It allows people to say,
33:30well, that's obviously because they wanted to cover the whole thing up.
33:35After his resignation from the news of the world
33:37over the Royal phone hacking,
33:39Andy Coulson was hired as head of communications
33:42for the Conservative Party.
33:44He'd been recommended for the job by George Osborne,
33:47David Cameron's closest ally.
33:51I remember a lot of people writing that what a wise decision it was
33:55by Cameron to hire this genius, hard-nosed, tabloid man, Andy Coulson.
34:05The political sands were again shifting,
34:08and David Cameron, like Tony Blair before him,
34:11was keen to have his moment in the sun.
34:16This time, Rupert Murdoch's yacht was anchored off the coast
34:20of the Greek island of Santorini.
34:23Rebecca Brooks was there too.
34:25From my point of view, it was just an opportunity
34:28to try to get to know Rupert Murdoch better.
34:31Obviously, I was trying to win over his newspapers
34:34and put across my opinion, so for me,
34:36it was just an opportunity to try and build that relationship.
34:40Although Rupert Murdoch seemed indifferent to the fact
34:44that David Cameron, who'd diverted from a family holiday,
34:47had made the effort.
34:49Mr Cameron might have thought stopping Santorini would impress me.
34:55Um...
34:59Greece was where Rupert Murdoch's daughter Liz had celebrated her 40th.
35:03Rebecca Brooks paid tribute by getting this special edition
35:07of The Sun mocked up.
35:09Soon afterwards, Rebecca Brooks moved here,
35:12down the road from David Cameron's constituency home in Oxfordshire.
35:15She married his friend, the racehorse trainer Charlie Brooks.
35:19Liz Murdoch lived nearby too.
35:21Together, they became known as the Chipping Norton set.
35:25It was almost as if the media and politicians merged.
35:29The Murdoch empire and politicians merged.
35:33I mean, Rebecca Brooks was almost a member of the Shadow Cabinet.
35:41We got to know each other because of her role in the media,
35:45my role in politics, but we struck up a friendship
35:48and obviously our relationship got stronger when she married Charlie Brooks,
35:52who I've known for some time and who's a neighbour.
35:55Did you often pop round to each other's houses in South Oxfordshire?
36:01No, I think often popping round is definitely overstating the case.
36:05We occasionally met in the countryside if it was...
36:08because I was there every weekend and he was there in his constituency.
36:13And David Cameron would also meet Rupert Murdoch's son, James.
36:19He told David Cameron the son would back him at the 2010 general election.
36:27As the election date drew nearer, David Cameron and Rebecca Brooks,
36:31now chief executive of News International, drew closer.
36:36I think as we get closer to the election and the decision of the son,
36:41then the level of contact went up and we saw each other socially more.
36:49On a Sunday, Dave could be out trying to learn what it's like to be an ordinary Joe,
36:53you know, what it's like just to be a normal person on a Sunday.
36:57What's he doing? He's over there having a glass of champagne with Rebecca
37:02at some, you know, party amongst the shipping sodry, or whatever they're called, set.
37:08There had also been numerous texts between them.
37:11Just before David Cameron gave a speech to an October 2009 party conference,
37:15Rebecca Brooks wrote...
37:18It showed a level of intimacy that I think was entirely inappropriate.
37:23I think that for him to allow someone like that to be so close in
37:29was a serious misjudgment.
37:31Everybody wants to know how his texts are signed off. Can you help?
37:35I can't. I can't.
37:37I can't. I can't.
37:39I can't. I can't.
37:41I can't. I can't.
37:43I can't.
37:45Everybody wants to know how his texts are signed off. Can you help?
37:49Occasionally he would sign them off...
37:55..'LOL, lots of love'.
37:58Actually, until I told him it meant laugh out loud,
38:01and then he didn't sign them like that anymore.
38:05David Cameron has accepted that politicians and the media got too close,
38:09but he says neither he nor his policies were influenced
38:12by support from News International.
38:16SIREN WAILS
38:19The Murdoch company had kept a lid on the hacking scandal
38:22by paying off those who discovered they'd been targeted.
38:27But in 2009, The Guardian made one of the settlements public
38:31and revealed News International journalists
38:34had selected hundreds of people for phone hacking.
38:37The Met asked Assistant Commissioner John Yates
38:40to see if a fresh investigation was needed.
38:43He launched his inquiry the next morning.
38:46It was over by tea time.
38:50No additional evidence has come to light since this case has concluded.
38:55I therefore consider that no further investigation is required.
39:01If the News International say you're wrong, it doesn't matter.
39:04The cops sitting on all that information,
39:06a guy with a straight reputation, he comes out and says you've got it wrong,
39:10that gives you a really nasty cold feeling in the pit of your stomach.
39:16The man who'd been in overall charge of the original investigation,
39:19former Assistant Commissioner Andy Heyman,
39:22was by now a columnist for News International.
39:25He wrote in The Times that the investigation had left no stone unturned.
39:34But we've established that investigation showed Glenn Mulcair
39:38had obtained far more sensitive information than the Met had ever admitted.
39:42The details of people on the National Witness Protection Scheme.
39:49The Witness Protection Scheme is a very expensive operation
39:54to give people who have been convicted of very serious offences
39:58and people who are very vulnerable witnesses
40:01to give them a completely new identity
40:03so they can have a completely fresh start.
40:07For that information to get into the hands of journalists
40:12is potentially putting people's lives at risk.
40:16Glenn Mulcair had got the new identities
40:19of four of the most notorious names in British criminal history,
40:24including Mary Bell and Robert Thompson, one of the killers of James Bulger.
40:30He'd been granted a high court injunction
40:33to keep his new identity secret.
40:36I would have expected an immediate and thorough investigation
40:40to identify how that information had got into the public domain
40:45and who was responsible for it
40:48so that we could restore confidence in the Witness Protection Scheme.
40:53The News Of The World had already printed several articles
40:57about Robert Thompson's new life.
41:00Now the Met knew Glenn Mulcair had his and others' new identities.
41:05I would be surprised if something of that sensitivity
41:09was not briefed up the command chain to very senior levels.
41:15The Met says Glenn Mulcair got the information
41:18by hacking the phones of people close to those in Witness Protection.
41:22It says it found no evidence that he'd paid police officers for the information
41:27and has confirmed that no further action was taken.
41:32But this was so serious, you'd expect that the News Of The World
41:36and Glenn Mulcair would have been reported to the Attorney General.
41:40They weren't.
41:42The Attorney General has confirmed to Panorama
41:45he is now considering whether to take action.
41:50Other evidence from the original police investigation
41:53was continuing to be unearthed.
41:57Including the transcript of a hacked call
42:00marked for the News Of The World's chief reporter, Neville Thirlbeck.
42:06John Yates, the man who had decided not to reopen the investigation,
42:10was again on the spot.
42:12Well, there's no evidence of an offence being committed.
42:15There's no evidence that reading that document is no evidence of an offence.
42:19There was clearly evidence staring him in the face
42:23had he bothered to look at it.
42:25He could only assume that he didn't want to see the evidence
42:28so that he could give the committee the denial that he did.
42:32John Yates says his decision not to reopen the inquiry
42:35was supported by the Met's own legal advice.
42:38He's told Panorama he was never briefed
42:40about the Witness Protection scheme being compromised
42:43and says he may well have come to a different conclusion if he had been.
42:51Neville Thirlbeck later told Tom Watson
42:53that News International had put him and his fellow MPs
42:56on the Media Select Committee under surveillance.
43:02He said, we broke you down into twos
43:04and wanted to find out, in his words, who was gay, who was having affairs.
43:09They wanted to know everything about committee members,
43:12which could only be to apply private pressure on individuals.
43:18The paper also followed the families of the lawyers suing it over hacking.
43:25To film my 14-year-old daughter, that's actually depraved.
43:29But where was that found?
43:31It was found in the offices of the News Of The World.
43:34My children were two and four at the time
43:39and the fear surrounding that
43:44and the upset for my family is something that I think is pretty unforgivable.
43:51In May 2010, the election put David Cameron in Downing Street
43:56with Andy Coulson alongside, now the government's head of communications.
44:01Lord Prescott, who'd already warned David Cameron once
44:05against hiring Andy Coulson, was astonished.
44:08When he appointed him, I reminded publicly that I wrote to him
44:12to warn him about that, so it was the second warning.
44:15I said, you'll live to regret it.
44:17And Andy Coulson had yet to be given the highest security clearance
44:21usually applied to those working in his position.
44:24That's very surprising, given he was at the heart of government,
44:29close to the Prime Minister.
44:32It does seem very difficult to explain.
44:36David Cameron has said that Andy Coulson was given
44:39the highest appropriate level of security clearance when he was appointed.
44:46Sean Hoare, who knew all about Andy Coulson's tabloid past,
44:50was about to become the first former News Of The World journalist
44:53to go on the record.
44:55The reason why I did it was Clive Goodman, who's a friend,
45:00was basically hung out to dry, which I thought was wrong
45:05given the culture and the establishment of the corporation,
45:09I know how it operates.
45:11I just felt a sense of misjustice at the end of the day.
45:16In September 2010, he told the New York Times
45:19that his old friend Andy Coulson must have known about phone hacking
45:23at the News Of The World.
45:25That was a moment, I think, within Scotland Yard
45:29where people started to ask questions
45:32and, politically, it had an effect too.
45:37But when police interviewed Sean Hoare,
45:39he was surprised to be treated not as a witness but as a suspect,
45:43so he told them nothing.
45:47I was interviewed by the mayor of Scotland Yard.
45:53He asked me a series of questions
45:56and I decided to exercise my right of no comment.
46:03News International had already used Sean Hoare's problems
46:06with drink and drugs to discredit him.
46:11To take an individual and then try to chop him down
46:15the way they did Sean, I think, is unforgivable.
46:22Sean Hoare died in 2011,
46:24so he never got to see Andy Coulson stand trial.
46:32Mr Coulson, do you have any regrets?
46:34The pressure on Andy Coulson over hacking intensified.
46:37He resigned, saying,
46:39when the spokesman needs a spokesman, it's time to move on.
46:44What had started as a newspaper scandal
46:47had now reached deep into David Cameron's number ten.
46:52People had tried to tell him about it
46:54and yet he disregarded that advice
46:57and so he associated himself with a group of people
47:01who had become part of a criminal conspiracy.
47:05He showed wretched judgement
47:07and it will permanently damage his reputation
47:11as British Prime Minister.
47:14David Cameron has said that he'd accepted
47:17the consistent assurances given by Andy Coulson
47:20that he'd had no involvement in phone hacking.
47:26News International now wanted to save its own reputation.
47:29After years of denying the full extent of phone hacking,
47:32it finally handed over evidence to the police.
47:36By then, the Met had launched a new inquiry, Operation Wheating.
47:40It would properly scrutinise the documents seized from Glenn Mulcair
47:44years before.
47:47Operation Wheating opens and I'm, I think, the first lawyer
47:50who gets to go in and actually see the papers,
47:52so I'm very excited about this.
47:55Many of the hacking victims were celebrities.
47:58One lawyer represented some of them, including actress Lesley Ash,
48:02whose married name is Chapman.
48:06The officer from Wheating showed me the papers.
48:10It said Lesley Chapman and then it had an address
48:13and then under the address they said it said Fulham
48:17and then there was a postcode.
48:19But it wasn't about the actress.
48:22I looked at it and I said,
48:24it doesn't say Fulham, it says Soham.
48:26Lesley Chapman is the murdered schoolgirl from Soham's father
48:30and it was like something dreadful came crashing down into that room.
48:40This wasn't a celebrity thing at all.
48:43This was a victim of crime and a child.
48:55With increasing evidence of serious criminal activity,
48:58the scandal was now a threat to the wider Murdoch empire.
49:03This didn't stop News International going ahead
49:05with its annual summer party and, as usual,
49:08many of the most powerful people in Britain
49:11turned up to rub shoulders with Rupert and Rebecca.
49:16I put a spell on you.
49:19Turn to your right and you'd see a bishop.
49:21You'd turn to your left and you'd see Sam and David Cameron.
49:24You'd look straight ahead and you'd see Ed Balls
49:26and you'd see Ed Miliband.
49:33As rain brought the Murdoch party to an early close,
49:36one family was learning just how far his newspapers would go
49:40to get a story.
49:43The Dowler family were finally told by police
49:46that Millie's phone had been hacked.
49:49News International contacted Mark Lewis
49:52within hours of the Guardian running the story.
49:55They realised the seriousness of it.
49:57They realised that the game was up for them
50:00because it wasn't possible to tell a lie.
50:03It was no longer possible to say this was a rogue reporter.
50:06There was a moment of catharsis where people said,
50:09actually, yes, there was something very ugly
50:12in British public life that had gone wrong
50:17and that must never happen again.
50:22The government reacted to the outcry
50:24by setting up a massive public inquiry
50:26here at the Royal Courts of Justice
50:28into the rot at the heart of the British press
50:31and its relationship with politicians and the police.
50:35What Lord Leveson wanted to know was what had gone wrong
50:39and who knew what and when.
50:47I happened to be by the swimming pool with very close friends
50:51that I was on holiday with.
50:55The conversation didn't take very long.
50:59In 2006, Tessa Jowell was Culture Secretary,
51:02responsible for media regulation,
51:04when police rang saying she'd been hacked by News International.
51:08She told Lord Leveson she informed some of her Cabinet colleagues.
51:13Their reaction was also one of shock
51:19but sympathy and concern for me
51:23because these were, you know, they were...
51:26They are people who are friends
51:30as much as they were then distinguished members of the Cabinet.
51:36Panorama has asked Tessa Jowell precisely who she told in Cabinet.
51:40She says she can't remember.
51:43So who was told?
51:45We understand the police briefed the Home Office,
51:48the Cabinet Office and MI5 about their investigation.
51:53My expectation would be ministers and potentially the Home Secretary
51:57would be briefed on that type of investigation
52:00because of its implications potentially for national security.
52:05The then Home Secretary John Reid has said
52:08he wasn't briefed about the investigation.
52:13So who in Cabinet did know?
52:16John Prescott wasn't told by the police but Tessa Jowell was.
52:20She told some colleagues.
52:23So did Tony Blair know?
52:25I find it very difficult to believe that if those ministers in 2006
52:29that were hacked had knowledge of it, they didn't tell Tony Blair.
52:33But he must answer for when he knew
52:35and what conversations he had with those people.
52:37If he did know, I think, and not tell me,
52:40I would have thought, I'm surprised, but that's life.
52:43I can't give you an answer whether he knew or not.
52:45You have to ask him.
52:47We did. He told us that as far as he can recall,
52:51he knew nothing about the details of the hacking inquiry
52:54or who may have been targeted.
52:58Whoever actually knew, no member of the Cabinet admitted in public
53:03to knowledge that phone hacking went wider than what had been disclosed.
53:10The day after the Millie Dowler story broke,
53:13Tony Blair emailed Rebecca Brooks saying,
53:16let me know if there's anything I can do to help.
53:19Thinking of you, I would beam through things like this.
53:24It emerged in court that Rebecca Brooks called Tony Blair,
53:27taking him up on his offer of support.
53:32In an hour-long phone call,
53:34Tony Blair told Rebecca Brooks to keep strong, tough up,
53:38and he even offered to act as unofficial adviser to her
53:43and the Murdochs on a between-us basis.
53:47His advice? Set up an inquiry headed by the former director
53:51of public prosecutions, Ken MacDonald.
53:54I wasn't asked. If I had been asked, I'd have politely declined.
53:57Surely Tony Blair ought to have been phoning up the Dowler family
54:01and saying, is there anything I can do?
54:03Is there anything I can do to help you?
54:05This was someone whose interest was not in helping people,
54:09it was an interest in helping a small clique of his friends.
54:14In a statement, Tony Blair told us he's not a fair-weather friend.
54:19His advice to Rebecca Brooks was informal,
54:21he knew nothing personally about the facts of the case,
54:24but thought it essential to have a fully transparent
54:27and independent process to get to the bottom of what had happened.
54:34Four days later, Rupert Murdoch flew into London
54:37to apologise to the Dowler family.
54:40Mr Murdoch, will you tell us what you said to the Dowler family?
54:43I haven't seen him.
54:45Did you apologise to the Dowler family?
54:48Did you apologise to the Dowler family?
54:52Suddenly, nobody wants to be Rupert Murdoch's friend.
54:55All those politicians who'd been queuing up to kiss his shoes
54:58suddenly say, actually, we never really liked him,
55:00we never trusted the guy.
55:03Rupert Murdoch withdrew his bid for full ownership
55:06of the satellite broadcaster BSkyB,
55:08the first challenge to his 45-year march through the British media.
55:14At Scotland Yard, the commissioner, Sir Paul Stevenson,
55:17resigned, as did John Yates.
55:20But questions remain for the Met.
55:23It was a failure, whatever way you dress it up.
55:26We have to be confident that the police, you know,
55:29can act without fear or favour.
55:31If there are doubts about the thoroughness of the investigation,
55:35then it's probably appropriate that an outside force
55:38or a Manchester's inspectorate come in
55:42and make sure that it was done to the standard we'd all expect.
55:47Andy Coulson is now condemned as the tabloid editor
55:50who built his career on the systematic criminal hacking
55:53of hundreds of people's phones.
55:57But questions remain about how he went on
56:00to work at the heart of government.
56:04I was given assurances that he didn't know about phone hacking,
56:07that turns out not to be the case,
56:09and I was always clear, if that happened, I would apologise,
56:12and I do so unreservedly today.
56:15David Cameron's former spin doctor is now facing jail,
56:19as is the man who hacked phones for him, Glenn Mulcair.
56:23He'd already pleaded guilty,
56:25along with four journalists from the News of the World.
56:28The police and the judiciary have finally moved in and done their job,
56:32but it will be a mistake to think that the problems
56:37which we were exposing have actually been solved.
56:42The hacking scandal has revealed that for years,
56:45politicians, police and the press enjoyed far too close a relationship.
56:50So close, it seems, widespread criminality was overlooked.
56:56Authorities on both sides of the Atlantic
56:59are considering corporate prosecutions
57:02against Rupert Murdoch's empire
57:05and, with other papers now under investigation,
57:08the hacking scandal is far from over.