good and trusted friends

Nick Davies (and Amelia Hill) brings the nuclear again:

Sara Payne, whose eight-year-old daughter Sarah was abducted and murdered in July 2000, has been told by Scotland Yard that they have found evidence to suggest she was targeted by the News of the World's investigator Glenn Mulcaire, who specialised in hacking voicemail...

 ... Friends of Sara Payne have told the Guardian that she is "absolutely devastated and deeply disappointed" at the disclosure. Her cause had been championed by the News of the World, and in particular by its former editor, Rebekah Brooks. Believing that she had not been a target for hacking, Payne wrote a farewell column for the paper's final edition on 10 July, referring to its staff as "my good and trusted friends".

The evidence that police have found in Mulcaire's notes is believed to relate to a phone given to Sara Payne by Rebekah Brooks as a gift to help her stay in touch with her supporters.

I suppose this falls into the category of unbelievable but not unexpected. But a reminder: Before her resignation, Rebekah Brooks was Chief Executive of News International. That's one hell of a corporate culture you have there, Rupert.

 

 

Comments

[john b]

I'm annoyed - I can't track down the story that I saw a couple of weeks ago about Brooks giving Payne Sr a phone (at the time, no proof of hacking - but it triggered my Hacking Bloody Obviously Happened detector). Anyone got anything? Fairly sure it's not Popbitch; might be Private Eye.

Good work Nick and Amelia for seeing the same story and actually following it up to something that's publishable in proper media, rather than just a cynical belief. Yay real journalists.

[jamie]

It was popbitch, three weeks ago I think.

[ajay]

The evidence that police have found in Mulcaire's notes is believed to relate to a phone given to Sara Payne by Rebekah Brooks as a gift to help her stay in touch with her supporters.

Ah, I was wondering how this story could get any worse than it already was. There you go.

[Barry Freed]

Believing that she had not been a target for hacking, Payne wrote a farewell column for the paper's final edition on 10 July, referring to its staff as "my good and trusted friends".

Wow, it's that extra twist of the knife (while kicking you in the balls and spitting in your eye) what does it. Just like getting the Dowlers to grant NOTW an exclusive interview about their renewed hope since Milly's voicemail box was freed up. Just wow.

[Wajahath Dean]

"The NOTW team supported me through some of the darkest, most difficult times of my life and became my trusted friends.
One example of their support was to give me a phone to help me stay in touch with my family, friends and support network, which turned out to be an absolute lifeline."

The Sun

[twitter.com/matt_heath]

That the NotW did something so nasty isn't unexpected, but that Brooks personally handed over the phone is, isn't it? Before this she could maintain an illusion of distance between herself and the dirty work.

[john b]

Yes to PB. I'd forgotten they wicked-whispered it, so checking my email for Brooks & Payne failed to come up with anything. Presumably their piece was based on close-reading of Payne's NOTW eulogy - thanks very much, Mr Dean.

[Alex]

How similar to the way the DEA busted Viktor Bout. Their grass handed him a fresh phone to make a call. The one they knew to listen to.

[johnf]

Peter Oborne on the opening up of post-Murdoch politics.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/peteroborne/100099006/in-the-post-murdoch-age-politics-can-develop-genuine-substance/

[Chris]

Consider this in the context of the story from the most recent Private Eye, in case you didn't see it yet:

"In fact, so concerned were several of Payne's friends on the paper at her appearance when she limped into the office - she suffered a devastating stroke just over 18 months ago, walks with a stick and remains both physically and mentally frail - that they tried to persuade her to turn around again on the grounds that she was too poorly to be there.

Payne, however, insisted she must stay because "Rebekah phoned me and told me to come in. She said she was calling in her favour."

[dsquared]

One example of their support was to give me a phone to help me stay in touch with my family, friends and support network, which turned out to be an absolute lifeline

I have enough cynicism left in the shrivelled black walnut-size lump of pure evil which miraculously continues to pump blood round my body, to think that Sarah Payne might not have actually written this, that it was ghost-written by a Sun journalist for her, and that said Sun journalist might have included this particular anecdote out of all the other possible ones in the expectation that having put "two-plus-two" out there, someone might come up with a "four" which would be absolutely guaranteed to come back to Rebekah Brooks (who had not resigned at the time).

[ajay]

Payne, however, insisted she must stay because "Rebekah phoned me and told me to come in. She said she was calling in her favour."

Oh, Christ. It's getting worse and worse. She bugged the phone of the crippled stroke-victim mother of a murdered child and then bullied her into coming into the office on crutches to try to give some petty little boost to her profile?

[Neil]

I've neither the time nor the inclination to do it myself, but has anyone done a thorough easter egg search in that final NotW?

I mean, I know what sub editors are like when the going is good...

[Chris Williams]

On the other hand, this is consistent with an 'I didn't know' defence. Brooks has upped the stakes: she's either (a) genuinely ignorant of what the people supposedly working for her did all day, or else (b) she is only marginally less evil than Myra Hindley.

Recently I was in a room full of historians speculating about what Heydrich might have got up to if he hadn't decided to make a career in the SS. This has prompted me to think that, perhaps thanks largely the era in which she came of age, Brooks has actually been relatively _lucky_ in the choice of evil boss-man to whose interests she decided to give her utter loyalty, and pledge every scrap of her honour.

[Alex]

The link isn't two-way - Heydrich had opportunities in the SS that other walks of life wouldn't have offered. I mean, nobody remembers Eichmann's years as a travel agent.

[johnf]

>I mean, nobody remembers Eichmann's years as a travel agent.

Christ, I do. Some of the places he sent me.

[john b]

Neil: the dailies tried to mine last NOTW, but the best they could do that made print at the time was the crossword (which is actually pretty tenuous). No idea how hard they tried, although if I were Nick Davies I'd've given it a bloody good combing.

Indeed, while the idea that disgruntled-hack-via-Popbitch was the vehicle for alerting our Nick is appealing, I suspect he's old-school enough that he got the tip from the editorial, and has spent the last fortnight mining (or getting Amelia to mine) Mulcaire's records for something that matches up.

[Alex]

Well, johnf, I'm sure he must have been a damn efficient travel agent...but still, a travel agent. Not a MASTER ARCHITECT OF TOTAL EVIL.

Similarly, I'm sure Heydrich would have been an awesome Daimler-Benz executive, but we'd only be discussing him now if this was a classic Merc owners' club, and he wouldn't have got to be (basically) king of Central Europe. Or he'd have made an outstanding German diplomat, in which case he'd probably have survived into the post-war era with both skin and career intact and ended up generally respected...and dull as anything.

[CMcM]

Off topic: jamie, is 'juggler's hat' some kind of Potteries slang, impenetrable to the rest of us?

[jamie]

No, but it damn well should be. I shall think of an application forthwith.

[skidmarx]

No, they are a common item of juggling equipment. These are typical, top hats are common, though these might have been useful for that purpose.

[jamie]

A malignant dwarf wanking into a hat on a train. There's something very English about that, somehow. the word is probably "quintessential".

[Richard J]

Suggested title for a blogpost: Really Don't Look Now.

(Was that a spoiler?)

[CMcM]

Note how the BBC headline writer, in a innate display of that sense they sometimes have of the shadowy ghost of Reithian limits, decided to highlight his role as a ewok when the options available in referring to his other main claim to fame, playing a goblin, just shout out to be explored.

[skidmarx]

Surely a perfect candidate for employing the Chewbacca Defense.

[Barry Freed]

A malignant dwarf wanking into a hat on a train. There's something very English about that, somehow. the word is probably "quintessential".

It reminds me of some half-forgotten Twin Peaks episode.

[ajay]

My first reaction to being told about that story was "bet the juggler wasn't too happy".