LONDON – A British parliamentary committee accused News of the Worldexecutives yesterday of suffering "collective amnesia" over illegal hacking of phone messages meant for royalty and other celebrities.
A committee on media said in a report it was "inconceivable" that managers at the News of the Worlddid not know about the practice, which the legislators said was more widespread than the Sunday newspaper had previously admitted.
News International, the British arm of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp which publishes the News of the World, rejected the claims and accused the committee of bias.
“The reaction of the committee to its failure to find any new evidence has been to make claims of ‘collective amnesia’, deliberate obfuscation and concealment of the truth,” it said.
In 2007, Clive Goodman, who reported on the British royal family for the paper, was jailed for four months after writing stories based on phone taps of royal aides carried out by a private detective.
News International has always maintained that Goodman acted without the knowledge of senior editors. But the cross-party parliamentary committee said in its report: "The evidence, we find, makes it inconceivable that no-one else at the News of the World, bar Mr Goodman, was aware of the activities."
Last July, the Guardiansaid News of the Worldreporters, with the knowledge of senior staff, had illegally accessed messages from the mobile phones of thousands of celebrities and politicians.
British tabloids are in fierce competition for scoops on sex and show business scandals.
Actors Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow, Australian model Elle Macpherson and former deputy prime minister John Prescott were among those targeted, the Guardiansaid. It also said News International had paid £1 million (€1.1 million) to settle complaints by three victims.
The Press Complaints Commission watchdog said in November that it had found no proof that the practice of hacking was widespread at the News of the World.
The police subsequently said they would not reopen their investigation.
However, the parliamentary committee said the number of people affected was certainly more than the handful named by police and the paper. – (Guardian service)