Murdoch Inc and the hacking scandal that’s been mysteriously overlooked

The issue of newspapers illegally obtaining information through hacking was uncovered more than 20 years ago. You’d think we’d have heard all the gory details by now, writes Alan Rusbridger – but the rabbit hole goes a lot deeper, as he learned when he found his own name in legal documents...

We continue to learn much about the moral probity of Murdoch Inc (PA)

Should I be alarmed or offended? In trawling through legal documents which emerged last week, I found my own name as a target of News of the World investigations in 2006. That’s the alarming bit.

The vaguely insulting bit was that the paper had commissioned private investigators to dig out low-level information – I’m told maybe a credit check? – with two invoices totalling £60. Puny stuff.

Yesterday, I contacted the reporter who tasked the private eyes to learn the reason for his interest in me.

“Sorry, can’t remember.”

I should be grateful I wasn’t Chris Huhne, the former Lib Dem MP whose legal papers (glancingly referencing me) surfaced in yet another phone-hacking action in the High Court. They tell the story of how the newspaper went to eye-watering lengths to prove that he was romantically involved with someone who wasn’t his wife – but also how they seem to have targeted him to shut him up at a time they were launching a lucrative bid.

From his account – based on internal Murdoch Inc documents and invoices – the newspaper forked out thousands upon thousands of pounds to hire private eyes to watch and tail the MP. I counted 50 days of legwork – quietly tailing him, watching him, snooping on his partner, tailing her, eavesdropping on their conversations. And that’s all before the phone hacking.

Now Rupert Murdoch is a very esteemed proprietor – witness the hushed accolades when it was recently announced that he would be stepping down at the age of 92. A titan and a visionary, we can all agree.

And his newspapers (CEO Rebekah Brooks) take a lofty view of other media organisations. The Times has thundered recently on the inadequacies of the BBC and the moral probity required to own TheDaily Telegraph.

While The Times did report on last week’s settlement, its article contained precious few details about the Huhne case which led to the former MP receiving six-figure damages, which comes on top of the £1.2bn in costs and damages which Murdoch Inc has already shelled out to victims of illegal information gathering. That’s a shame, because we continue to learn much about the moral probity of Murdoch Inc.

Those of you who have been paying close attention will know that the issue of newspapers hiring private investigators to dig the dirt on people first broke into the open in 2002. You’d think such activity would have dried up then. But, no.

In 2006 (around the time I was apparently mundanely targeted), the single “rogue” News of the World reporter was arrested and then jailed for phone hacking the royal family. So, surely newspapers would then abandon the black arts of using, or outsourcing, criminal means of digging up information? But no.

In 2009, the Guardian revealed a boardroom cover-up of the fact that Murdoch Inc had paid out nearly £1m in costs and damages in a settlement (with PFA chair Gordon Taylor and others) which proved that phone hacking had been more widespread in the company. Stop then, surely? No.

Eventually, MPs, the police, the regulator and the media all turned their glare on Murdoch Inc. There were arrests, resignations, pay-outs, apologies (Rupert Murdoch: “the most humble day of my life”). But through all this, the phones kept being hacked – at least according to the statement of claim made by Huhne, which led to this week’s payout. And, over time, it seems an awful lot of evidence was lost – but that’s another story.

I should say at this point that, while paying out huge sums in damages, Murdoch Inc admits only hacking at the News of the World in the four or five years up to 2006, and denies (or does not admit – a legal distinction) any other liabilities including any wrongdoing at The Sun. The easiest way of testing them would, of course, be to argue them out in open court, but for reasons which can only be guessed at, the top executives at Murdoch Inc seem to be reluctant to do so.

Now concentrate on the period between 2009 and 2011, when Murdoch prepares for, and launches, a bid for the bits of BSkyB he doesn’t already own. Vince Cable, as Liberal Democrat business secretary in the coalition post-2010, now becomes the crucial figure in deciding whether to refer the bid. He looks minded to do so.

It seems to me from the material in Huhne’s case that Murdoch Inc decided to target Cable, along with any other influential politicians who might come between them and their takeover.

One of those was Chris Huhne, who – when Nick Davies first broke the cover-up story in 2009 – had written an article calling for the re-opening of a police inquiry into phone hacking.

Nearly 900 calls were made to the three senior Lib Dem MPs involved in this bid from the “Wapping hub” – a corporate phone number which would make tracing individual journalists impossible. We can now see emails in which top Murdoch executives and lobbyists analysed any potential obstacles to the bid – and duly met with the News of the World editor.

Murdoch’s lobbyist, Fred Michel, emails Brooks in September 2010, that “the key will be for prominent Lib Dems like [Nick] Clegg and Huhne to stay silent (and I think they will)”. By December 2010, the BskyB bid was taken out of Cable’s hands, after recordings of him from an unrelated sting operation by the Telegraph were leaked to Robert Peston. Cable said he’d “declared war" on Murdoch over his plans to buy all of BSkyB, even though he was supposed to take a quasi-judicial approach to the transaction.

What I do suspect now – based, at least, on the Huhne case – is that, at critical parts of the story, Murdoch’s news operations (with their extensive network of private eyes) may have been used for commercial espionage on behalf of the wider company. And that MPs who might stand in the way were targeted.

So it’s a shame that we haven’t read more about all this in recent days. It’s easier, let’s face it, to kick the BBC. The promised second part of the Leveson Inquiry, which was supposed to investigate these shadowy networks, was abandoned after pressure from newspapers.

Prince Harry has been denied his day in court over phone-hacking claims against the Sun – though not the phone-hacking element. He is awaiting a judgment in his claim against the Mirror Group. And he is still on course to see The Mail in Court. You will have noticed how scrupulously they have avoided criticising him because of the evident conflict of interests involved.

Murdoch Inc, on the other side of the Atlantic, has shelled out $1bn in costs and damages to avoid a court case which will have shown how Fox News knowingly lied about the result of the 2020 election in the run-up to the 6 January insurrection. The monetary damage may end up twice that. Anything, in NY as in London, to keep it out of court.

But, still, Murdoch is a titan and a visionary. And the BBC is rubbish, and we must not let dubious foreigners get their mitts on our newspapers.

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. But, first, someone has to write the history.

This article was amended on 11 December 2023. It previously said that The Times had not covered the case, which was incorrect.