Phone hacking, 9/7/2011

The interview of Colin Myler (News of the World editor) and Tom Crone (NotW legal affairs head) by the Levenson Select Committee of parliament was a bust. Myler and Crone repeated their allegation that James Murdoch was informed about the memo by reporter Ross Hindley that appeared to be a transcript of phone hacking (aka the “for Neville” e-mail) as the reason why NotW had to settle with soccer’s Gordon Taylor. Dan Sabbagh, The Guardian:

What was less clear was what they thought James Murdoch understood by the email, or even the meeting….Why was Murdoch so incurious about the underlying hacking issue that was raised by the “for Neville” email…James Murdoch wants to emphasise the similarities between his account and his two former employees. All agree, for example, that no documents were produced at this key meeting. Not seeing the “for Neville” email or its link to Thurlbeck may also explain why James Murdoch did not order an inquiry into the emerging phone-hacking allegations three years ago.

Crone and Myler did not fire the fatal shot today, but the discrepancies between the accounts of the two men on one side and one man on the other have not yet been reconciled.

That point about “the fatal shot” is an understatement. Esther Addley, The Guardian:

Were Crone and Myler certain, asked the committee’s chair, John Whittingdale, they had told James Murdoch in that meeting “about that email”? “I’m certain,” said Crone. So that was that. Um, not quite. Had he shown him the email? He couldn’t recall. So what exactly had happened? “I can’t remember the conversation and there isn’t a note of it.
…
It fell, eventually, to Louise Mensch to say explicitly what everyone was thinking. Murdoch’s evidence, to the effect that he had not seen any evidence that hacking went wider than a single rogue reporter, was “crystal clear”. “I have to say, sir, that Your evidence has been as clear as mud. …

So, there’s no legal proof–say, in the form of a contemporaneous memo– that in this meeting, James Murdoch was made clearly aware that there was a criminal inquiry about phone hacking. He was just, curiously, incurious. This is a classic example of how corporate corruption works. Everyone knows what’s being talked about, and so they avoid being too explicit or making notes, or doing anything that might come back later.

James Robinson and Lisa O’Carroll, The Guardian:

The 35-year-old man arrested on Wednesday by detectives investigating phone hacking is believed to be the deputy football editor of the Times, Raoul Simons.

Simons joined the Times from the Evening Standard in August 2009, but has been on extended leave since late 2010.

Scotland Yard is believed to have arrested Simons at 5.55am on Wednesday on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications.

A little more from ericlewis0, Daily Kos.