Kelvin MacKenzie Hacked? Oh the Horror.....

Like most people in this cuntry I was disgusted by the News of the World Hacking scandal. Be it the murdered teenager Milly Dowler or a Z-list celebrity, what the paper did was utterly inexcusable. That said there is one hacking victim whose plight makes me feel a little less outraged.

The Guardian notes that even former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenziewas hacked by the Sun's erstwhile sister paper the News of the World. In this week's Spectator, MacKenzie writes about the incident in terms that show the level of his distress at betrayal by journalistic colleagues.

He does little to hide his displeasure at discovering the truth about the News of the World's interception of his mobile phone voicemail messages.

He begins by explaining that he was called in by officers from Operation Weeting – the Scotland Yard investigation into hacking – and shown "a tatty binder with my name down the side." He continues:

"Sheet one had my name on it with a number by the side... The next page was more interesting. It had the pin code used to access my phone's voicemails.

Up to this moment I had always believed that the pin codes of mobiles were 0000 or 1111 and that's why it was so easy to crack. But no.

In my case it was something like 367549V27418. That surely must kill the idea that the hackers guessed or blagged the number – they must have had inside help from the phone networks."

It gets even more interesting by the time he is shown the final page. It contained six dates in 2006 that gave the time and duration of his phone being hacked. He writes:

"For the first time I felt uneasy. If you have been editor of The Sun for 12 years, if you have floated and run a public company as founder, chairman and chief executive, very little worries or concerns you any more; your nerve endings have become encased in cement.

But, oddly, I felt quite threatened by this invasion and understood more clearly why celebrities — no matter if they were A- or Z-listers — felt they had been violated."

I know this intrusion was unconscionable but I shed no tears whatsoever for a revolting little cumstain like Kelvin MacKenzie.

MacKenzie was the Sun's editor between 1981 and 1994. During this time the paper produce a host of quality stories (pah!) including:

- Elton John had sex with underage rent boys
- Elton John had taken the vocal cords from his guard dogs so that they did not disturb his sleep

Unsurprisingly the former Mr Dwight received a seven figure sum in damages for these stories!

A fabricated interview with Falklands veteran Simon Weston who had received serious burn injuries during an Argintniean Air Force attack on the vessel Sir Galahad at Bluff Cove.

Un funded story that actor Jeremy Brett was dying of Aids when in fact he was dying of a cardiomyopathy

The coverage of the Hillsborough tragedy and his continued unrepentance. To this day the Sun sells very poorly in Liverpool

The list goes on and on...

MacKenzie represents everything that is wrong with the shit that passes as journalism across a large swathe of the British Press. It would be somewhat fitting if he were photographed publicly masturbating over a Royal Family tea towel. Hmm if only my Photoshop skills were up to snuff....

NOTW demise changes nothing

Now that my two nanoseconds of euphoria over the NOTW's demise has passed over, I can't help but view James Murdoch's action with more than a dash of cynicism.

I would agree that, commercially, the closure makes sense - the paper was haemhorraging advertising revenue and a large scale boycott was inevitable. Given the nature of recent revelations there was probably little that News International could do to reclaim whatever little reputation the rag ever had. I do feel for those who will lose their jobs as a result of the criminal actions of others.

It is a drastic move by any standards, but it is unlikely that closure was due to any noble intent. I doubt that James Murdoch had any real concern for the hurt done to  the families of Millie Dowler, Jessica Chapman, Holly Wells, the 7/7 victims and the servicemen killed in Iraq or Afghanistan.

The only victim that a Murdoch cares for, I am sure, is a Murdoch. The NOTW allegations have damaged their company's reputation especially here in the UK.  Murdoch in all probability shut the paper in an attempt to safeguard its takeover of the satellite broadcaster BSkyB.

It is unlikely that other papers will be allowed to capitalise on the NOTW's absence. A new Sunday publication, (perhaps or perhaps not a Sunday edition of the Sun) will replace it within a few weeksy.A "clean slate" and lots of tits and celebrity shagging (but no hacking, honest guv) and Newscorp will be raking in the Sunday money again.

The NOTW's closure must not derail any investigations into its past actions. The public inquiry must go ahead straight away. Its terms should be extended to determine whether other papers have committed similar acts.

We need to know the following:

• the FULL extent of the NOTW's phone hacking activities

• the journalists directly responsible for commissioning these acts.

• The full extent of complicity of management, right up to the top echelons of Newscorp
• Full details of illegal payments to police officers

It is not just the NOTW, it is important that the Metropolitan Police's previous handling of investigations are scrutinised Were they compromised by illegal payments? In addition the role of politicians needs to be looked at.

News International must also suspend its Chief Executive forthwith. Rebekah Brooks was NOTW editor at the time of some of the worst transgressions. No proper   internal investigation can take place while she has access to company records. If she was complicit in any way then she must be dismissed and, if sufficient evidence is available, stand trial.

The Press Complaints Commission must be abolished. It is clearly not fit for purpose.

The Newscorp takeover of BSyB must be stopped. The company is currently not fit to extend its media influence. It would be desirable if Newscorp was forced to offload its press holdings in the UK. That said would new owners be much better (Thinks of Maxwell and Black)

I could go on.It is good and not good news that the NOTW is no more but thee are essential lessons that need to be learned. Do not let the Murdochs derail things.

News of the World is axed

James Murdoch (son of Rupert) has just announce that Sunday's edition of the NOTW will be its last.

Murdoch minot's statement is reported by the BBC and Guardian but it wil be everywhere soon.

Good riddance to bad rubbish I say. But this is not the end of matters. There are many issues that must still be investigated and criminal charges laid

I daresay that the replacement paper will be along soon but that it will not be a whole lot better, content-wise.

British Legion severs ties with NOTW

Again it seems that the News of the World has stooped even lower. There are now indications that it turned its attentions on families of members of the armed forces killed in Afghanistan.

The effect of these allegations is that the Royal British Legion has dropped the newspaper as its campaigning partner

The servicemen and women's charity said it had suspended all relations with the News of the World and was reviewing its advertising budget with News International, which also publishes the Sun and the Times.

MPH Solicitors, whose clients include Samantha Roberts, the widow of Sergeant Steven Roberts of the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment, said it had been contacted on Wednesday by a newspaper and told Roberts's phone may have been hacked, along with a mobile belonging to her lawyer, Geraldine McCool.
McCool said there was no evidence to show confidential information was obtained through hacking.


Rose Gentle, whose son, Fusilier Gordon Gentle, was killed in Iraq in 2004, called for an immediate inquiry and said the hacking of phones belonging to relatives of dead soldiers would be "pretty disgusting" if true.

"It's like a living nightmare, just waiting for a knock at the door again to be told some bad news," she told Radio 4's Today programme.

Meanwhile Procter & Gamble, O2, Vauxhall, Butlins and Virgin Holidays, joined Ford in pulling advertisements from this weekend's News of the World.

I am not sure how worse this revolting tale can get Perhaps if it was revealed the Rebekah Brooks and David Coulson were caught in flagrante raping the corpse of a dead soldier, then maybe…

Did NOTW sink even lower?

If you thought that the News of the World had plumbed the very depths by (allegedly) hacking the voice mail account of murdered teenager Milly Dowler then think again.


New allegations have emerged indicating that the News of the World hacked phones belonging to family members of people murdered on 7/7.

According to the Telegraph (and just about every single paper in the Western world bar the NOTW's sister paper the Sun) detectives investigating the phone hacking scandal are in the process of contacting a number” of the bereaved families whose names or phone numbers have appeared as part of ongoing police inquiries

It is thought that journalists were seeking to access voice messages left on family members’ phones as they desperately waited for information about their loved ones in the aftermath of the bombings in 2005.

Clifford Tibber, solicitor for a number of the families, said: “This will cause heartache for all the families involved. The anniversary is such an emotional moment for everybody who was caught up in the bombings and many of them still struggle at this time of year.”

Not only this but it seems that the parents of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman (two children murdered in Soham, Cambridgeshire in 2002) by have been warned by detectives that their mobile phone voicemails may have been intercepted by a private detective working on behalf of the News of the World.

Scotland Yard was understood to have contacted the parents of the two young girls murdered by Ian Huntley finding mobile telephone numbers belonging to family members in files seized from Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator working for the Sunday newspaper.

If these allegations are true then the NOTW has hit yet another new low,

The allegations of hacking in respect of the Soham and Milly Dowler related to the editorship of Rebekah Wade who is now managing director of News International (the parent company for Murdoch’s empire in Britain). Although she has denied any knowledge I find it inconceivable that she was totally unaware that news items were being garnered using illegal sources. It may have been a case that she urged staff to use whatever means possible to get stories but that she did not want to know how (wink, wink). If she had any knowledge at all of these activities then she should stand trial for her acts.

However, even if she didn't she, as editor, was responsible for the actions of her staff and should resign from News International forthwith as it is clear that she is utterly incapable of effective management.

7/7 happened while her successor Andy Coulson was editor. Coulson, a revolting Essex spiv (NB I am from Essex – I was born in Romford before it became part of Greater London) resigned from his post in 2007 after Private Investigator Glenn Mulcaire and royal editor Clive Goodman were imprisoned for hacking voicemails left for members of the royal household.. Likewise I find it inconceivable that he was totally ignorant of such ativities.

To make things more embarrassing he was almost immediately appointed as Press Secretary to David Cameron, a post he retained after Cameron became Prime Minister. Coulson resigned in January following a tide of allegations of hacking relating to politicians and celebrities. Still one must question Cameron’s judgement if he were to give this man a job with a huge salary paid by the taxpayer.

Ah well both Brooks and Coulson loved to delve in shit, It does the heart good to see them getting covered in it.

Ford pulls ads from NOTW

The Ford Motor Company is the first company to pull advertising from the News of the World today following revelations that a private investigator working for the paper hacked into Milly Dowler's phone when she went missing in 2002

According to the Independent the company said it would work with alternative media instead, including papers in the News International group such as The Sun and its website.

A spokesman said: "Ford is a company which cares about the standards of behaviour of its own people and those it deals with externally. We are awaiting an outcome from the News of the World investigation and expect a speedy and decisive response. Pending this response we will be using alternative media within and outside News International Group instead of placing Ford advertising in the News of the World."

Other companies also said they were considering pulling their advertising from the newspaper. Halifax and NPower are currently >reviewing their options.”

Others, including the Co-op (much to my disappointment) have made no move as yet.

This is going to hurt the paper hard. If the troglodytes that currently buy the shitrag vote with their feet and a fair proportion of advertisers pull the plug then the News of the World is in huge trouble.

This will be utterly deserved. I hope more advertisers follow Ford’s lead.

News of the World reaches new low

For those readers who are not familiar with this paper the News of the World is the best selling Sunday tabloid in Britain..that Rupert Murdoch Is the owner gives an indication of the quality of this newspaper.. Basically it is a foul little rag owned by a revolting shit and read by the scum of Britain.

It has pulled some pretty vile stunts in the past. Currently it is the subject of a renewed criminal investigation relating to phone hacking, mainly of celebrities. (The paper’s royal editor and a private investigator were sent to prison back in 2007 for hacking phones in the Royal Household). However, it has done far worse than invading the privacy of some celebrities.

Milly Dowler was a thirteen year old girl who disappeared from her family in March 2002. Her body was found several months later but it was not until late last month that her murdered, Levi Bellfield was sent to prison for the rest of his life (His life sentence is a life, no parole, sentence). According to the Guardian, the News of the World illegally targeted the missing schoolgirl and her family in March 2002, hacking her phone, interfering with messages and basically hindering police inquiries into her disappearance.

Detectives from Scotland Yard's inquiry into the NOTW phone hacking, Operation Weeting, are believed to have found evidence of the targeting of the Dowlers in a collection of 11,000 pages of notes kept by Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator jailed for phone hacking on behalf of the News of the World.

In the last four weeks the Met officers have approached Surrey police and taken formal statements from some of those involved in the original inquiry, who were concerned about how News of the World journalists intercepted – and deleted – the voicemail messages of Milly Dowler.

The messages were deleted by journalists in the first few days after Milly's disappearance in order to free up space for more messages. As a result friends and relatives of Milly concluded wrongly that she might still be alive. Police feared evidence may have been destroyed.

The Guardian investigation has shown that, within a very short time of Milly vanishing, News of the World journalists reacted by engaging in what was standard practice in their newsroom: they hired private investigators to get them a story.

Paperwork seen by the Guardian reveals that they paid a Hampshire private investigator, Steve Whittamore, to obtain home addresses and, where necessary, ex-directory phone numbers for any families called Dowler in the Walton area. The three addresses Whittamore found could be obtained lawfully on the electoral register. The two ex-directory numbers, however, were "blagged" illegally from British Telecom's confidential records by one of Whittamore's associates, John Gunning, who works from a base in Wiltshire. One of the ex-directory numbers was attributed by Whittamore to Milly's family home.

Then, with 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 by confusing the picture when they had few leads to pursue.It also potentially destroyed valuable evidence.

According to one senior source familiar with the Surrey police investigation: "It can happen with abduction murders that the perpetrator will leave messages, asking the missing person to get in touch, as part of their efforts at concealment. We need those messages as evidence. Anybody who destroys that evidence is seriously interfering with the course of a police investigation."
The paper made little effort to conceal the hacking from its readers.

On 14 April 2002, it published a story about a woman allegedly pretending to be Milly Dowler who had applied for a job with a recruitment agency: "It is thought the hoaxer even gave the agency Milly's real mobile number … The agency used the number to contact Milly when a job vacancy arose and left a message on her voicemail … It was on March 27, six days after Milly went missing, that the employment agency appears to have phoned her mobile."

The newspaper also made no effort to conceal its activity from Surrey police. After it had hacked the message from the recruitment agency on Milly's phone, the paper informed police about it.

At the time, Surrey police suspected that phones belonging to detectives and to Milly's parents also were being targeted. However, they 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. As one source close to the inquiry put it: "There was a hell of a lot of dirty stuff going on." Two earlier Yard inquiries had failed to investigate the relevant notes in Mulcaire's logs.

The News of the World's parent company News International, "We have been co-operating fully with Operation Weeting since our voluntary disclosure in January restarted the investigation into illegal voicemail interception. This particular case is clearly a development of great concern and we will be conducting our own inquiries. We will obviously co-operate fully with any police request on this should we be asked."

Oh yes I am sure they will cooperate now that this out, the hypocritical bastards.

Words utterly fail me. Well no they don’t. If there is a tenth of the truth in the allegations then as far as I am cocerned the private investigators involved should be imprisoned along with the journalists involved. Not only that but every single person in the chain of command is as culpable and should be brought to account.

While I consider the NOTW staff to be something akin to the shit on a paedophle’s boot, the garbage who buy this rag are just as guilty.