Phone-hacking trial: The Milly Dowler case was the 'hack that brought down the News of the World', court hears
As the trial resumed for the afternoon, Andrew Edis QC continued his opening statement on charge 1 of the indictment, the alleged criminal conspiracy to “hack” voicemail messages at the News of the World and Sun Newspapers. Mr Edis began with discussing the part of the charge relating to Milly Dowler, a 13 year old girl who disappeared on her way home from school in Surrey in March 2002. Her murdered body was not found until September 2002. It was the revelation that her phone had allegedly been accessed by Glenn Mulcaire that was, in Edis’s words “The hack that brought down the News of the World”
Murdered: Schoolgirl Milly Dowler
Edis described the plight of the parents of Dowler during the period between her disappearence and the discovery of her body as being caught in the “agony of hope” that she might be found alive. He further contended that the News of the World had hacked her phone in this period stating “Mulcaire did it, Rebekah Brooks and Andrew Coulson were “criminally involved”
Before moving on to the detail Edis said it was important that the jury know the relationship between Brooks and Coulson. He told the court that during the criminal inquiry into phone hacking police had found a computer in the cupboard of Brooks’ home containg a word document. The document was a letter to Andy Coulson. Edis made it clear that there was no evidence, one way or another, that this letter had ever been sent and that he had no intention to make a moral judgement on it, but "they are charged with conspiracy and, when people are charged with conspiracy, the first question a jury has to answer is how well did they know each other? How much did they trust each other?,"
The extract of the letter from Brooks to Coulson appeared to be a response to Coulson trying to end their relationship, the extract read in court was
“There are a hundred things that have happened since Saturday night that I would normally share with you... Some important, most trivial...The fact is you are my very best friend. I tell you everything, I confide in you, I seek your advice, I love you, care about you, worry about you...We laugh and cry together... in fact without our relationship in my life, I am really not sure how I will cope. I'm frightened to be without you.”
This, said Edis, showed the did trust each other.
Edis then told the court the Milly Dowler story was “important to the News of the World” and that Brooks had personally intervened in it’s coverage. He pointed to an editorial where the Milly Dowler case was linked to Brooks’ campaign for “Sarah’s law” which would publicly identify peadophiles, and editorial that would have undoubtedly have been approved by Brooks as the papers editor. The police, as part of their inquiry, had obtained a court order to access Dowler’s voicemails as part of their investigation into her disapearence. However a “remarkable coincidence” would reveal they were not the only people accessing them.
On the 27th March 2002 a voicemail was left on Dowler’s phone from a recruitment agency “Monday’s” based in Telford in Shropshire. The message, addressed to “Mandy” (Amanda was Dowler’s full name) was about work available in Epsom. In fact the number of the actual Mandy was almost identical to Milly’s and had been dialed in error. However it sparked off an investigation by the paper which Edis stated was “expensive, protracted and involved a lot of staff” an operation that “must have been authorised at a high level” he asked the jury to imagine the impact of a headline “News of the World Finds Girl Police Couldnt Find” adding “Tragically this was not to be, but that was the objective of the exercise. Mulcaire, he alleged, was tasked with hacking Milly’s telephone on the 10th April. The pressure was on as if they did not get the story by the Saturday night they would be unable to publish until the week after, when some other paper would probably have it, then it would be “no use at all”
A junior reporter, Chris Bucktin, was dispatched to Shopshire to quiz the employment agency staff. crucially his expenses claim for petrol was filed as re “Milly Dowler answerphone messages” He contended that this was evidence that knowledge of phone hacking was widespread at the News of the World, asking the jury that if a junior reporter knew the source of the story was it possible that the editor, Brooks, and deputy editor, Coulson could, as they claimed be unaware of it?
Brooks was, at the time in Dubai on holiday, but was in regular communication with Coulson who was putting together that Sunday’s paper. Given what he had told the jury about their relationship, he asked, is it credible that they would not have shared the information?
Edis then showed the jury copies of the three editions of the News of the World of the 14th April. The first edition had a prominent story “Milly Hoax riddle” with the text:
“A new twist last night when it emerged that messages had been sent to her mobile phone after she vanished” which goes on to quote exactly the messages on Milly’s voicemail. Yet by ther second edition this had been changed to “The Hunt for Milly Dowler took a shocking twist last night when it emerged a deranged woman has been posing as the missing youngster” with the content of the voicemail messaged removed. Who would have the authority to change this, Edis argued, other than senior editorial staff at the paper, either Coulson or Brooks, adding “If they knew about the story they must have known where it came from.” It was “incredible” to argue that the editors did not see the story “there was too much going on to miss it.”
He also noted a email sent, via the police, to the Dowler family on 10th April from the News of the World which offered them the papers sympathy, help to find Milly, a full page interview and a large reward. The 10th of April was also the day Glen Mulcaire was allegedly tasked to intercept Milly’s voicemails.
There was then a short break after which Edis moved on to other alleged hacking victims, which we will cover in our next report.