Tabloid, Phone-hacking | featured news

James Murdoch has severed all ties with News Corp's British newspaper business, which is at the centre of multiple investigations over phone and computer hacking and bribery, according to regulatory filings.

Phone-hacking was widespread at Piers Morgan's Daily Mirror, a former columnist at the tabloid said on Wednesday, as an official inquiry unearthed further evidence of the illegal practice in the British press.

Horror stories of car chases, intense paranoia, spitting paparazzi, and most of all an ineffective regulatory system peppered today’s inquiry into News Corp’s News Of The World phone hacking scandal by a British government-backed inquiry into UK press ethics and practices. Notably appearing in London Thursday were actress Sienna Miller and Harry Potter author JK Rowling.

James Murdoch has resigned from the boards of the companies that publish its British newspapers including the now-defunct News of the World tabloid at the center of the phone hacking sandal, regulatory filings show.

News International is expected to pay about three million pounds($4.7 million) to settle hacking claims by the family of murder victim Milly Dowler against the now defunct News of the World newspaper, sources close to the case told Reuters on Monday.

Former senior News Corp. executive Les Hinton is being recalled to testify before a parliamentary committee over a phone-hacking scandal involving journalists at the now defunct News of the World newspaper, a spokesman for the panel said Tuesday.

James Murdoch was aware that another News of the World reporter was seemingly implicated in illegal tapping, despite his statements to the contrary, say two top executives of the now-defunct newspaper. Media executive James Murdoch knew of a damaging piece of evidence three years ago that phone hacking was practiced by more than one reporter at the News of the World tabloid, despite his statements to the contrary, two of his former colleagues said Tuesday.

Harbottle & Lewis, the law firm embroiled in the phone-hacking scandal sweeping Rupert Murdoch's News of the World newspaper, has taken the unusual step of fighting back against its former client to preserve its reputation.

A high-profile parliamentary panel investigating phone hacking at Rupert Murdoch’s now-defunct News of the World tabloid released embarrassing new evidence Tuesday that the practice of intercepting voice mail had been widely discussed at the newspaper, contradicting assertions by its owners and editors.

Heather Mills was quoted on Wednesday as saying a journalist at British publisher Trinity Mirror, owner of the Daily Mirror tabloid newspaper, had hacked her phone before she was married to former Beatle Paul McCartney.