THE MOTHER of murder victim Milly Dowler, whose mobile telephone was hacked by the News of the Worldafter she went missing, "felt euphoria" after she got through to her daughter's voicemail, the Leveson Inquiry into British press standards was told yesterday.
In his opening address, David Sherborne QC insisted the News of the Worldwas not the only guilty tabloid newspaper, and rejected the argument offered by tabloid editors last month that state regulation of the press was not needed.
“Mr and Mrs Dowler will tell you what it felt like in those moments when Sally, her mother, finally got through to her daughter’s voicemail after persistent attempts had failed because the box was full, and the euphoria which this belief created, false as it was, unfortunately,” he said.
The Dowlers, who recently received £2 million in compensation from the tabloid’s publisher, News International, will give evidence on Monday, with 20 other hacking victims to follow during the remainder of the week.
Tabloids, Mr Sherborne said, were guilty of blackmailing “vulnerable” people, of exploiting “opportunistic” ones and of “hounding” celebrities, who did not relinquish their rights to a private life because they had become well-known. The sins of the tabloids, he said were “systemic, flagrant and deeply entrenched”, where people believed they had a right to “steal what they cant procure”, or “to make up” what they could not verify.
Opposing demands for state regulation, Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Guardian – which exposed the News of the World's offences, said: "It could be argued that before we abolish self-regulation we should try it first."
The existing Press Complaints Commission was a complaints body, not a regulator, he argued, adding that parliament, the police and other elements of the Press had proven to be "the dogs that didn't bark" and failed to expose the News of the World.
Newspapers had striven to fend off tougher regulation even since the Leveson Inquiry had prepared to get under way, said Mr Sherborne, who represents 51 alleged victims of phone-hacking by the now-closed Sunday tabloid.“They have lobbied hard to try and push their agenda through the pages of their own highly-influential newspapers to influence politicians with the sole objective that there should be less, not more, restriction or regulation,” he said.
One of his best-known clients, actor Hugh Grant, received indirect threats “to shut up” after he became a figurehead of the Hacked Off campaign, demanding stronger regulation of the Press, he told the inquiry.
Former Formula One executive Max Mosley’s reputation was destroyed after the Sunday tabloid reported he had engaged in Nazi-themed orgies, though the Nazi element of the allegation was wrong. Eventually he received £60,000 in damages for breach of his privacy.
Saying it should have had to give advance notice of the story, Mr Sherborne said people would never look upon Mr Mosley in the same way that they had before they knew what he had done “with consenting adults in private”.
“Let us be honest, who can look at him without thinking about what he chooses to do with other consenting adults in private?” said Mr Sherborne, who spoke just feet away from Mr Mosley, who has attended all sessions of the inquiry so far.
NUJ general secretary Michelle Stanistreet lambasted the Press Complaints Commission, describing it as “little more than a self-serving gentleman’s club” that had “failed, abysmally so”. But she rejected demands for State licensing of journalists.
Senior News of the Worldfigures must have known what was going on, she said: "At the heart of any newspaper culture is the editor. What he or she says goes. For anyone who has worked in a newsroom, the concept of an editor who didn't know what their troops were getting up to is laughable."