Newly released correspondence in the investigation into phone-hacking has revealed that senior executives at the News of the World (NoW) were warned three years ago that there was “overwhelming evidence” that senior journalists were involved in hacking activities.
The documents — which were published Tuesday by the Culture, Media & Sport select committee investigating phone-hacking — include a legal opinion sent to NoW legal manager Tom Crone on June 3, 2008, by 11 South Square’s Michael Silverleaf QC, group counsel for News Group Newspapers (NGN), which states that evidence obtained from the Metropolitan Police demonstrated that “at least three” of the newspaper’s journalists “appear to have been intimately involved.”
