Detectives are examining a computer, paperwork and a phone found in a bin near the riverside London home of Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of News International.
It is understood the bag was handed in to security at around 3pm, and that shortly afterwards Brooks's husband, Charlie, arrived and tried to reclaim it. He was unable to prove the bag was his and the security guard refused to release it.
Wendy is younger than me... Wonder what she sees in the multi-billionaire Rupert Murdoch?
His sparkling wit, repartee and chiselled abs?
Nah - he married her to gain leverage in China when expanding his media empire there. It worked: his is one of the few western corporations to get a foothold over there. Its not something the couple was coy about.
Dan Cooper, who helped launch Fox News as managing editor in 1996, said that a ???brain room??? carried out ???counter intelligence??? on the channel???s enemies from its New York headquarters.
He was threatened after it found out he spoke to a reporter, he claimed. Another former senior executive said the channel ran a spying network on staff, reading their emails and making them ???feel they were being watched???.
12.48pm: Paul Owen writes: Tom Watson, the culture committee member who has been a key critic of News international, has been outspoken this morning about Colin Myler and Tom Crone's contradiction of James Murdoch's evidence (see 11.39am).
Watson told the BBC that if Myler and Crone were correct it meant Murdoch had "bought the silence" of Gordon Taylor when it agreed to pay him around ??700,000 to settle his litigation.
Watson said of Murdoch:
It shows that he not only failed to report a crime to the police, but because there was a confidentiality clause involved in the settlement, it means that he bought the silence of Gordon Taylor and that could mean that he is facing investigation for perverting the course of justice.
He said Taylor was paid a settlement that was 10 times higher than the previous highest settlement, which was the News of the World's ??60,000 payment to Max Moseley over a story about the then-Formula One chief's sex life. Watson went on:
Taylor was the victim of a crime. Far from reporting the crime to the police or putting the matter right within his own company, what Myler's statement shows - if it is true - [is] that James Murdoch knowingly bought the silence of Taylor, thereby covering up a crime. In the UK, that is called conspiring to pervert the course of justice and it is very serious matter, and I think the Metropolitan police now have to look at this as a matter of urgency.
He said he thought the police would want to investigate Myler and Crone, and added:
It is remarkable that this week, with the global media pantomime of Rupert and James Murdoch coming to parliament, broadcast live on every news channel around the world and then 48 hours later a senior editor and a lawyer are saying parliament was once again misled. I have never known anything like it in all my time in politics.
"As the self-appointed scourge of paedos and the promoters of Sarah's law, it was only natural that the News Of The World would be on hand to comfort the victims' families in many of the most horrific crimes of the last decade. And such was their apparent determination to rid the country of child sex offenders, it wouldn't have seemed too weird if a senior NOTW figure sympathetically handed over a mobile phone at no expense to the victim - so that they could all keep in touch. And then, of course, there would be no problem monitoring those phones, would there? If the rumours going around News International about who the person handing out the phone was are anything more substantial than chatter from understandably bitter ex-employees then we might see some action on this website before too long"
And News International are saying they have paid for Sara Payne's mobile for the last few years.
Co-incidentally Private Eye ran a story last week about Sara Payne arriving at the NOTW offices as they prepared the last issue, and the journalists being genuinely concerned she shouldn't be there, as she is very sick - but she said she had to be there as "Rebekah was calling in some favours".
well it got very overexposed, culminating in the murdoch pie fiasco.. then as one conservative back bencher put it "the public appetite for this story is waning".. and with perfect timing, we had one psychopathic killing spree and the death of a tabloid heroin. its in the interests of the tories, the bskyb shareholders and just about every paper on in fleet street that this story quietly gets swept under the carpet, which is what originally happened, as the complicity of it all, police, politicians and media is simply too distressing for the public. i have no doubt it will continue to resurface though, if Tom Watson is correct there are still plenty of headlines to come from this.
DocMcCoy"Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,917 Posts
If, as Rebekah Brooks seemed to suggest the other week, there's potentially years of bad news ahead of NI & associated companies, then I feel safe in stating this story will outdo Muhammad Ali, Frank Sinatra and Michael Myers in the comeback stakes.
Comments
Jnr's explanation about buying people's silence... SMH.
QFT
he's filibustering. they need to ask him more yes/no type questions.
feisty one, that Wendy Murdoch.
-
Sideshow Bob up next.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/18/mystery-bag-bin-rebekah-brooks
Yeah, way to make today's story about an 80-y-o man getting attacked by an "anarchist".
Rebekah Brooks is a fucking stuttering clot, isn't she? How'd she ever manage to batter Ross Kemp?
No. His name is Jonathan May-Bowles.
This possibly makes it even worse (middle-class, double-barreled surname, trusatafarian related).
:oh_snap: :nagl:
This sounds VERY interesting!
His sparkling wit, repartee and chiselled abs?
Bet she didn't think he'd last this long.
Nah - he married her to gain leverage in China when expanding his media empire there. It worked: his is one of the few western corporations to get a foothold over there. Its not something the couple was coy about.
Meanwhile, shit begins to hit the US fan..
Rupert Murdoch???s Fox News television channel had a ???black ops??? department that may have illegally hacked private telephone records, a former executive for the station has alleged.
So I guess Smithers wants to do time?
Tsk. Lies always come back to haunt you James.
b/w
Disgusting if true.
"As the self-appointed scourge of paedos and the promoters of Sarah's law, it was only natural that the News Of The World would be on hand to comfort the victims' families in many of the most horrific crimes of the last decade. And such was their apparent determination to rid the country of child sex offenders, it wouldn't have seemed too weird if a senior NOTW figure sympathetically handed over a mobile phone at no expense to the victim - so that they could all keep in touch. And then, of course, there would be no problem monitoring those phones, would there? If the rumours going around News International about who the person handing out the phone was are anything more substantial than chatter from understandably bitter ex-employees then we might see some action on this website before too long"
And News International are saying they have paid for Sara Payne's mobile for the last few years.
Co-incidentally Private Eye ran a story last week about Sara Payne arriving at the NOTW offices as they prepared the last issue, and the journalists being genuinely concerned she shouldn't be there, as she is very sick - but she said she had to be there as "Rebekah was calling in some favours".
Some what related, The Daily Mail list of things that give you cancer.
well it got very overexposed, culminating in the murdoch pie fiasco.. then as one conservative back bencher put it "the public appetite for this story is waning".. and with perfect timing, we had one psychopathic killing spree and the death of a tabloid heroin. its in the interests of the tories, the bskyb shareholders and just about every paper on in fleet street that this story quietly gets swept under the carpet, which is what originally happened, as the complicity of it all, police, politicians and media is simply too distressing for the public. i have no doubt it will continue to resurface though, if Tom Watson is correct there are still plenty of headlines to come from this.