The Millions of Deleted Emails from News International

Some of the agreed facts from the hacking trial put another complexion on the 3 million missing emails mentioned in the Guardian coverage of Kingston trial.

If you read the last paragraph of the agreed facts from the phone hacking trial earlier this year, the number is more like 13 million missing emails.

156, In excess of 90 million email messages emanating from the NI email systems have been retrieved in order to be searched for the purpose of this prosecution. They  represent available or potentially available messages from across the organization and are not limited to persons of interest to the police investigation and include duplicates of messages and also messages recovered for the years up to 2011.

157 This does not represent all email messages ever sent or received by current and historic employees of NOTW and The Sun. Not every email message ever sent or received within NI still exists. This is for a number of reasons.

‘Can we hack their voicemail? That’s kind of how journalism worked in those days’ – extract from Beyond Contempt | Press Gazette

This first extract focuses on former Sunday Mirror and News of the World reporter Dan Evans, who gave evidence against colleagues and admitted phone-hacking whilst at both titles. It also looks at the case against former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks. Beyond Contempt is available to buy as en e-book and order in paperback format

.“Can we hack their voicemail? Oh, there they are… let’s go along with a photographer. That’s kind of how tabloid journalism worked in those days – that was life.” Former News of the World reporter Dan Evans said management referred to phone-hacking during conferences as “special checks,” and unlike the Mirror group, News International wanted everything on email.

The Route to Verdict: Justice Saunders’ Directions to the Hacking Trial Jury

In a slight departure from custom, Justice Saunders began to summarise the legal issues facing the jury at Court 12 at the Old Bailey today. This is not his entire summing up, which will follow the closing arguments of the defence and the prosecution. It also excludes any directions on Count 2 and 3 which involve Clive Goodman, because he is still unfit to stand trial (he was hospitalised today because of his continuing pneumonia).

However, the following highlights from the judge’s directions are a useful guide to what questions the jury have to decide