Scotland Yard has written to the country's top-selling Sunday tabloids to ask if it has any evidence to support claims that the paper spied on celebrities, politicians and other high-profile figures.
But the police force which has been accused of sweeping the allegations under a rug refused to explain why it was asking the two powerful papers to volunteer potentially incriminating evidence about itself, The London Times refused to explain what it has or doesn’t and evoked its civil rights under the English law rights chartered rights in English laws that are senior to any dated British laws not to comment and its believed that other newspaper will also exercise those same English law rights? Which could open up a massive can worms in British laws when people find out that English laws are the more senior laws and many English laws give such right as to not pay certain tax like council tax and other types of taxes and fines which are not in fact lawful under English law?
The force has now refused to say whether it had ever sought such evidence before, or say what would happen if the tabloids didn't comply with its request because it’s now stumped under English laws not British being their British police and not English police.
The News of The World has been at the centre of suspected tabloid phone hacking scandal since a reporter and a private investigator employed by the Rupert Murdoch title were caught illegally eavesdropping on the phones of the British royal family's entourage. The pair was convicted in 2007, but the News of the World has long insisted that they were the only ones responsible for the sophisticated phone tapping operation a claim dismissed as implausible by the paper's critics.
The issue is particularly sensitive because the tabloid's former editor, Andy Coulson, who stepped down in the wake of the scandal, now serves as British Prime Minister David Cameron's communications director. Coulson has long insisted he knew nothing of the illegal goings-on at his paper while he was in charge which is what all guilty men say (Not me Gov, I got an alibi?)
The issue burst back on to the English and British front pages last year when The New York Times and London Times quoted a former News of The World reporter, Sean Hoare, as saying that Coulson not only knew of the phone tapping but willing he encouraged it. Another ex-staff member, Paul McMullan, was later quoted in the British press as saying Coulson knew about it all he was the boss.
Police have come in for harsh scrutiny too. The Times quoted several unnamed detectives as saying that they felt internal pressure to curtail their investigation into The News of The World, which turned up thousands of numbers of potential phone tapping targets.
Police have denied that claim which of course they would, but launched a fresh investigation amid public outcry.
Earlier prosecutors said they had found no new evidence to back the allegations. The Guardian newspaper, which has also aggressively investigated the scandal, ridiculed the announcement.
"If The Guardian can find numerous News of the World journalists who admit that the newspaper gathered information by illegal means, why can't Scotland Yard?" one of its reporters wrote following the news.
Meanwhile the scandal has rumbled on. The police's latest plea for information — announced on Friday after business hours follows The Guardian's publication of a legal document alleging that the voicemails of actress Sienna Miller and her partner Jude Law were among those broken into. Ian Edmondson, a senior executive at the paper, was among those named in the document.
Edmondson’s suspension was announced Wednesday, putting renewed pressure on authorities to act. The News of The World said late Friday that it would "cooperate fully" with the police.
No comments:
Post a Comment