Even by the debased standards of the tabloid press this Guardian account of how the News of the World intercepted and deleted messages left on Milly Dowler’s mobile phone days after the 13 year-old’s disappearance in 2002 must represent a new low. That’s assuming the Guardian story is accurate, of course, but there seems little reason, at present, to doubt it. It may be one thing to spy on movie stars and pop sensations; quite another, most people will think, to use the same “techniques” in the matter of a missing – and subsequently murdered – teenage girl. As Nick Davies and Amelia Hill report:
[W]ith the help of its own full-time private investigator, Glenn Mulcaire, the News of the World started illegally intercepting mobile phone messages. Scotland Yard is now investigating evidence that the paper hacked directly into the voicemail of the missing girl’s own phone. As her friends and parents called and left messages imploring Milly to get in touch with them, the News of the World was listening and recording their every private word.
But the journalists at the News of the World then encountered a problem. Milly’s voicemail box filled up and would accept no more messages. Apparently thirsty for more information from more voicemails, the News of the World intervened – and deleted the messages that had been left in the first few days after her disappearance.
According to one source, this had a devastating effect: when her friends and family called again and discovered that her voicemail had been cleared, they concluded that this must have been done by Milly herself and, therefore, that she must still be alive. But she was not. The interference created false hope and extra agony for those who were misled by it.
The Dowler family then granted an exclusive interview to the News of the World in which they talked about their hope, quite unaware that it had been falsely kindled by the newspaper’s own intervention. Sally Dowler told the paper: “If Milly walked through the door, I don’t think we’d be able to speak. We’d just weep tears of joy and give her a great big hug.”
The deletion of the messages also caused difficulties for the police. It confused the picture at a time when they had few real leads to pursue. It also potentially destroyed valuable evidence.
How does the old saw go? You couldn’t make it up. Nor, I think, can any of this be covered by any conceivable public interest argument (a defence that can be used to defend at least some of the tabs’ muckraking). As Jack of Kent points out this would seem to go some way beyond just “hacking” phones and could now be considered a case of perverting the course of justice. Then again, the police have questions to answer themselves – namely explaining their curious reluctance to pursue these matters at the time they became aware of them.[…] They [the police] took no action against the News of the World, partly because their main focus was to find the missing schoolgirl and partly because this was only one example of tabloid misbehaviour.
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