title: Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives

text: Some time after , Tommy Jarvis is released from the local Hospital for the Criminally Insane...despite still having hallucinations of the mass murderer Jason Voorhees, whom he killed in . He returns to Crystal Lake, now renamed Forest Green, to confront his fears...alongside his friend Allen Hawes. The pair visit Jason's grave during a thunderstorm, hoping to cremate the killer's body and finally end Tommy's nightmares. After digging up Jason's corpse, Tommy experiences flashbacks of his last encounter with Jason. As he furiously impales Jason's body with a metal fence post, two lightning bolts strike the post...restoring Jason to life as a revenant with superhuman strength. After killing Hawes, Jason dons his hockey mask (which Tommy has brought along with him). Tommy flees to the sheriff's office; there he attempts to warn the police of Jason's return, only to be arrested and jailed by Sheriff Mike Garris...who is aware of Tommy's institutionalization. Sheriff Garris presumes that Tommy is hallucinating Jason's return. On the road, camp counselors Darren Robinson and Lizabeth Mott get lost looking for the Camp Forest Green. They discover Jason, who murders them both.


title: Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives

text: The following morning, Garris' daughter Megan - a striking blonde with a wild streak - arrives at his station...along with her friends Sissy Baker, Cort Andrews, and Paula Mott. The four teenagers report Darren and Lizabeth missing. Tommy warns them about Jason, who is now considered an urban legend. Megan doesn't know whether to believe Tommy, although she does find herself attracted to him. In the woods, Jason happens upon a corporate paintball game; he decapitates three members, crushes a fourth member's face into a tree, and dismembers the fifth member. He also commandeers a machete from them.


title: Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives

text: As children arrive at Camp Forest Green, the teen counselors do their best to run the camp...still wondering what has happened to Darren and Lizabeth. Meanwhile, Sheriff Garris opts for transferring Tommy out of his jurisdiction, due to Tommy's influence on Megan. On the way out of town, Tommy makes a run for Jason's grave...which the caretaker has covered up, in order to deny responsibility for the grave being robbed. Hawes' body is buried in Jason's place. A handcuffed Tommy is escorted out of town by the Sheriff, who warns him to never return. That night, Jason murders the caretaker...along with a nearby couple who happen to witness the murder. Meanwhile, Cort meets with a girl named Nicola Parsley; as the teen couple make out, Jason kills them both. When the sheriff's men find Nicola's and Cort's bodies, Garris promptly implicates Tommy in the double murder...convinced that Tommy's "delusions" regarding Jason have driven him berserk.


title: Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives

text: Tommy contacts Megan for help luring Jason back to Crystal Lake. She agrees. Meanwhile, Jason makes his way to the camp. He kills both Sissy and Paula, but refrains from harming the children. Elsewhere, Tommy and Megan are pulled over by Sheriff Garris. Although his daughter points out that Tommy has been with her for the past few hours, and therefore could not have murdered Cort and Nicola, the sheriff locks Tommy up anyway...telling Megan he'll decide what to do with her later. Then Garris and two of his deputies head out for the camp to arrest Tommy's (nonexistent) "other accomplice"; instead, all three lawmen are slain by Jason. Megan breaks Tommy out of jail and they rush to the camp.


title: Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives

text: Jason is about to kill Megan when Tommy calls to him from a boat out on the lake; remembering his killer, Jason goes after Tommy instead. Tommy chains a boulder around Jason's neck, trapping him underwater, but Jason demolishes the boat and drags him beneath the lake's surface. When Megan dives in to rescue Tommy, Jason grabs her leg; she runs the monster through with the boat's outboard motor. Megan swims Tommy back to shore and revives him via CPR. Tommy says that Jason is finally home.


title: Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives

text: Although the previous film in the series, "Friday the 13th: A New Beginning", had been a financial success, it had disappointed the series' fans and received some of the worst reviews of any film in the series. In order to prevent further alienating the fans (and thus potentially endangering the series), the producers decided to take the series in a new direction, moving it away from what producer Frank Mancuso Jr. called the "coarse" nature of "A New Beginning".


title: Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives

text: To this end, Mancuso hired Tom McLoughlin, who had directed the successful horror film "One Dark Night" but was also known around Hollywood for shopping around various comedy scripts he had written, a dichotomy that appealed to Mancuso. McLoughlin was given free rein on how he would present the story, with the only condition being that he bring back Jason and make him the film's villain.


title: Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives

text: McLoughlin decided to take the film in the direction of an old Universal Monsters movie, specifically the 1931 version of "Frankenstein", which portrayed the monster as a lumbering killer brought to life by electricity. McLoughlin also drew from vampire lore in order to give Jason a weakness, namely being returned to his "home soil"; to achieve this, McLoughlin disregarded the idea presented in "Part 2" that Jason had survived his drowning, instead presenting the idea that Jason has always been some sort of supernatural force. He also decided to retcon the ending of the fifth film, where Tommy Jarvis was a serial killer. In fact, Pam's truck from the fifth film can be seen indicating she is alive. In the "Tommy Tapes" for "" (2017) written by Adam Green, it's explained that the ending of the fifth film was Tommy's dream.


title: Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives

text: McLoughlin further decided to expand the series' thematic scope, incorporating action film elements and postmodern metahumor; when Jason is first encountered in the woods near Crystal Lake, the character Lizbeth comments that she and Darren should flee because she knows about proper conduct to survive a horror film. McLoughlin would further satirize the series itself, as Martin the gravedigger comments on Jason's exhumation, "Why'd they have to go and dig up Jason?" before breaking the fourth wall and addressing the camera with the observation, "Some folks sure got a strange idea of entertainment." In addition to "Frankenstein", McLoughlin also cited as inspiration his love of Gothic horror, particularly the works of Edgar Allan Poe, and his Catholic upbringing; "Jason Lives" features the series' only explicit references to God, and during the climax a praying girl is spared by Jason (a similar scene, in which the same girl prays for Tommy while Megan performs CPR, then mouths "Thank you" while looking skyward was deleted from the final cut of the movie, apparently against McLoughlin's wishes; he recalled in the 2009 DVD's director's commentary, "Somehow it didn't stay in... probably too much sentiment").


title: Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives

text: The decision to retcon the events of "Part V" resulted in many members of that film's cast—whose characters had survived—having their contracts to return for a sequel terminated. At one point in time when "Jason Lives" was being considered as a direct sequel to "A New Beginning" rather than to "The Final Chapter", the surviving characters Pam and Reggie from "A New Beginning" were to have died in the film's opening moments.


title: Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives

text: Although Mancuso retained control over the film's casting, he deferred to McLoughlin's judgment; the only caveat was that the final girl had to be a "very attractive blonde". To fulfill this requirement, McLoughlin chose Jennifer Cooke, based on her performance in the television series "V". The role of Hawes, Tommy's would-be sidekick who dies within the first five minutes of the movie, was given to another television veteran, Ron Palillo, famous for the role of Horshack on "Welcome Back, Kotter".


title: Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives

text: John Shepherd was asked to reprise his role as Tommy Jarvis from the previous film. Shepherd, an evangelical Christian who had reservations about returning to the series based on the atmosphere surrounding "A New Beginning", was attracted to "Jason Lives" based on the scene in which a praying girl is spared by Jason. He ultimately decided to film "Caught" and shortly thereafter retired from acting to go to seminary. Thom Matthews, who would take over the mantel of Tommy Jarvis, was chosen for his work in the horror comedy "Return of the Living Dead", although McLoughlin himself was unaware of Matthews' horror credentials until after shooting began. Other cast members were actors who McLoughlin had directed before (such as David Kagen, who was also an acting teacher for female lead Jennifer Cooke) and McLoughlin's own family—Jason's first female victim in the film, Lizbeth, was played by McLoughlin's wife, Nancy. In keeping with the series' tradition, the role of Jason was given to a stuntman, Dan Bradley. Bradley, however, was replaced shortly thereafter by C. J. Graham. Bradley's involvement during the paintball scene is kept.


title: Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives

text: After the first day of filming, Mancuso decided that he disliked Bradley's appearance onscreen as Jason. Although the scenes that Bradley filmed—in which Jason kills the paintball playing executives—were kept in the completed picture, the rest of Jason's scenes were performed by C. J. Graham, an area restaurant manager and former soldier. As part of a stage show put on at the restaurant, a magician would hypnotize audience members and place them in a scenario during which they encountered Jason Voorhees; Graham, who stood 6'3 and weighed 250 lbs, was asked to play Jason for the scenario. "Jason Lives" special effects coordinator, Martin Becker, was in the audience for one such show, and recommended Graham to Mancuso and McLoughlin. Both men were impressed with Graham's presence, and he was hired to film the remainder of Jason's scenes.


title: Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives

text: "Jason Lives" is the only film in the franchise to contain no nudity; the characters in the film's sole sex scene are both fully clothed, a conscious move on McLoughlin's part to distance the "Friday the 13th" films from their perception as morality tales in which premarital sex is punished by death. McLoughlin was pressured by the film's producers to have Darcy Demoss remove her shirt during the RV sex scene, but he only suggested the idea to Demoss, who refused.


title: Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives

text: "Jason Lives" was filmed in Covington, Georgia, an area close to Atlanta. The scenes involving the police department and town were filmed in Covington, while the camp scenes were filmed at Camp Daniel Morgan outside the city limits of Covington. In the film, Camp Crystal Lake has been renamed Lake Forest Green. Surrounding Camp Daniel Morgan are Smokey the Bear signs asking everyone to "Keep the Forests Green".


title: Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives

text: Some of the climactic moments in the lake were actually filmed in the swimming pool of McLoughlin's father. McLoughlin ruined the pool's filter in the process (it was jammed by gore churned into the water when Jason is hit with the boat propeller).


title: Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives

text: McLoughlin's attempt to deliver a "different" kind of "Friday the 13th" film were met with skepticism from the producers. In contrast to the series' other entries, which had to be edited for violence in order to avoid an "X" rating, the film's producers requested that McLoughlin add more gore, violence, and murders to the film. The original cut of the film contained 13 killings as an in-joke; in order to appease the studio, McLoughlin had to add an additional three killings, bringing the total up to 16. These were the killings of Martin the gravedigger, and the recently engaged couple on a nighttime picnic. McLoughlin later said he felt the shot in which the picnicking man realizes that he's been spotted by Jason to be the film's scariest moment.


title: Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives

text: Additionally, McLoughlin was made to extend Sissy's death, adding the shots of Jason dragging her to the ground and twisting her head off; as originally filmed, Sissy was simply pulled out of the cabin window, and wasn't seen again until Megan finds her head in the squad car.


title: Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives

text: McLoughlin also found himself in contention with the producers over how the film should end. In the original script, the movie was supposed to have concluded in the graveyard, with Martin the gravedigger meeting Jason's father, Elias—a heretofore unseen character in the series—with the implication that Elias knows Jason has been resurrected and has come looking for him. The studio balked at the scene, as they did not want the responsibility of having to introduce Elias' backstory in the next installment. Additionally, the added murder of Martin made the scene a continuity error. This ending would have tied up a continuity error from "A New Beginning", when it is mentioned that Jason was cremated. A deleted scene from "Jason Lives" had Tommy asking Sheriff Garris why Jason wasn't cremated, as had been planned, at which point Garris informs him that someone paid the city to bury Jason; Elias' handing Martin a wad of money would have indicated that he was the man who paid for Jason's burial. The scene was later storyboarded for inclusion on the film's "Deluxe Edition" DVD release, with Bob Larkin reprising his role as Martin to provide voiceover. Elias, like Jason, was scripted to be completely silent.


title: Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives

text: McLoughlin ultimately shot three endings, two of which were not included on the film's DVD release. In one ending, Jason's mask floats to the surface of Crystal Lake, having become detached during his struggle with Megan. In another, Deputy Cologne tries to reach the jail cell keys after having been locked in by Tommy and Megan; the door to the police station opens and the film abruptly ends, indicating that Jason managed to get free. The producers disliked both of these endings, as each one left Jason's survival ambiguous, and wanted it explicitly shown onscreen that he was still capable of returning for a sequel. As a result, McLoughlin shot the film's used ending, showing a closeup of Jason's open, twitching eye.


title: Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives

text: The film's music was composed by Harry Manfredini, who composed the scores to all of the series' previous installments. In addition to the original score, the soundtrack also featured:


title: Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives

text: "He's Back (The Man Behind the Mask)" had an accompanying music video, combining clips from the film with new footage featuring Cooper.


title: Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives

text: On January 13, 2012, La-La Land Records released a limited edition 6-CD boxset containing Manfredini's scores from the first six "Friday the 13th" films. It sold out in less than 24 hours.


title: Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives

text: "Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives" opened on August 1, 1986, in 1,610 theaters and grossed $6.7 million in its opening weekend, ranking number two at the US box office. Ultimately, it would go on to gross a total of $19.4 million, ranking at number 46 on the list of the year's top earners.


title: Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives

text: On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, "Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives" holds an approval rating of 50% based on 30 reviews, with an average rating of 5.10/10. The site's critics consensus reads: ""Friday the 13th: Part VI - Jason Lives" indeed brings back ol' Voorhees, along with a sense of serviceable braindead fun." On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 30 out of 100, based on 10 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews." Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives

text: "Variety" described the film as predictable but "reasonably slick". Caryn James of "The New York Times" called it "a gory waste of time", citing numerous logic problems and stating that McLoughlin's injecting humor into the series, while successful, was not enough to liven up the predictability of the story. Gene Siskel of the "Chicago Tribune" similarly judged that while the film's self-referential humor was good enough to make it the best film in the series, it was not enough to take away from the story being essentially the same as in the previous five installments. He gave it 1 1/2 stars.


title: Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives

text: In a 2012 retrospective review, Ken Hanke of "Mountain Xpress" wrote that it "may not be exactly a good movie in the strict sense, but it's easily the best in the series", noting that he had seen all ten installments which had been released at the time. David Nusair said the film has "probably the most effective pre-credits sequence in the entire franchise ... just the sort of appreciatively ludicrous interlude that's generally been sorely missing from this pervasively dull series". However, he felt the bulk of the film, while an improvement over the previous two installments, suffered from tedious pacing and a lack of gore. He gave it two out of four stars, the same rating he gave to six out of the series' ten installments.


title: Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives

text: A novelization of "Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives" was written by Simon Hawke in 1986; notably, the novelization features an appearance by a Mr. Voorhees, Jason's father who was originally meant to appear in the film but was cut. The book also includes various flashbacks to Jason's childhood and the backstories of characters such as Tommy and Sheriff Garris are also expanded.


title: Night King

text: The Night King is a fictional character appearing in the HBO high fantasy television series "Game of Thrones", based on George R. R. Martin's novel series "A Song of Ice and Fire". He is depicted as the leader and the first of the White Walkers, having existed since the age of the First Men, and is the most dangerous and powerful of his race. The Night King is an original creation of the television adaptation, thus far having no counterpart in the novels upon which the show is based.


title: Night King

text: The Night King was portrayed by British-American actor Richard Brake in seasons 4 and 5 and then by Slovakian actor and stuntman in seasons 6 to 8.


title: Night King

text: In "Game of Thrones", the Night King is physically distinguished from the other White Walkers by his "crown" of pointy, frosty horns.


title: Night King

text: The "Night King", as presented in the show, has not appeared in "A Song of Ice and Fire". In the novels, the title "Night's King" is given to the long-ago legendary 13th Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, who supposedly married a female White Walker and led the Night's Watch to commit atrocities. Regarding whether the character in the television series is the same as the one in the novels, Martin said, "As for the Night's King (the form I prefer), in the books he is a legendary figure, akin to Lann the Clever and Brandon the Builder, and no more likely to have survived to the present day than they have."


title: Night King

text: In order to create the Night King, according to Barrie Gower, it is primarily practical prosthetic, but also incorporates some visual effects (VFX) to create a more icy look and feel, saying about the eyes, "The effects department alters the eyes in post-production. They give them that blue-glowy hue to them, which we can't really achieve with contact lenses." With regard to the overall prosthetic, "they've added this sort of icy layer over the top of him to create this—it's something incredibly difficult to achieve practically, prosthetics are cast in a translucent rubber, which can only give you so much of that icy quality, so visual effects help augment it a little bit further to give it more dimension." In the fourth and fifth season, the Night King was portrayed by Richard Brake, with a head mold of Brake being created in order to accurately mold the prosthetic to his face. In the sixth season he was portrayed by Vladimir Furdik after Brake was forced to drop out due to scheduling conflicts stemming from his participation in the TV series "The Bastard Executioner". The White Walker army was first shot in front of a green screen in Magheramorne quarry, and according to a piece in "The Hollywood Reporter" "A scan was taken from a drone and used as the basis for a CG model of the location, which was augmented with VFX and joined with volcanic hills that were photographed in Iceland." Crowd replication was used to create the 1,000-man army, with special effects supervisor Joe Bauer saying "It's scans of those actors in the makeup and costumes, with variations we used to make a digital army that extends up onto the hills." Bauer also noted that VFX were used to create the weather conditions in the scene, noting "It's wind, mist, fog and heavy atmosphere that you'd get in a marine layer. The dramatic value is to say something's wrong; it's a mystery what they are facing. The temperature drops, and our characters can see their breath. The weather obscures their vision." Spain-based El Ranchito, one of several special effects companies used by "Game of Thrones", was responsible for the White Walker army shots.


title: Night King

text: The Night King's first appearance is through a vision Bran Stark has with a Weirwood Heart tree. He experiences a flood of images from the past, present, and future, many of which he was not physically present for. He does not comprehend what all of these images are but, in retrospect, one of them is an image of the Night King picking up the last of Craster's sons off an ice altar.


title: Night King

text: After Rast leaves Craster's final son in the Haunted Forest, a White Walker retrieves the child. The Walker travels to the White Walkers' fortress in the Lands of Always Winter and lays the child on an altar made of ice. The Night King approaches and places his finger on the boy, transforming him into a White Walker.


title: Night King

text: The Night King appears again when Jon Snow and Tormund Giantsbane are coordinating the evacuation of Hardhome. While loading the ships with wildlings, Hardhome is attacked by an army of wights. While assisting in the defense of Hardhome, Jon and Tormund see the Night King observing the battle along with his generals. The Night King also observes Jon destroying a White Walker with his Valyrian steel sword Longclaw. Jon and his allies are forced to flee Hardhome after the walls fall to the army of the dead; as they sail to safety, they witness the Night King reviving the dead as wights.


title: Night King

text: The Night King appears in a vision being observed by Bran and the Three-eyed Raven, where they witness him as a human being forcibly transformed into the first White Walker by the Children of the Forest by impaling him with a dragonglass dagger. Bran subsequently confronts Leaf about creating the White Walkers. She explains that they were at war with the First Men and had no choice.


title: Night King

text: Later on, Bran decides to observe a vision without the Three-Eyed Raven. He witnesses a massive army of wights led by the Night King, who touches him whilst in the vision. Bran awakens to find a mark where he was touched, and the Three-Eyed Raven warns that he must leave, as the Night King is now able to bypass the magic protecting the Three-Eyed Raven's lair. The Night King and his army quickly arrive and the Night King kills the Three-Eyed Raven, but Bran and Meera Reed are able to escape.


title: Night King

text: The Night King is shown leading his army south. Through ravens' eyes, Bran locates the Night King's army beyond the Wall. When the Night King looks up, the ravens disperse, and Bran is pulled out of the warging. He requests that ravens be sent throughout the Seven Kingdoms to warn of the threat.


title: Night King

text: The Night King is present when the wights and White Walkers battle Jon Snow at the Wight Hunt, who traveled beyond the Wall with the Hound, Jorah, Beric, Thoros, Gendry, Tormund and several other Wildlings to attempt to capture a wight to use as proof for the gathered high lords of Westeros. Remembering their encounter from Hardhome, the Night King keeps his gaze on Jon for some time. Beric Dondarrion suggests trying to kill the Night King; as they know, killing a White Walker kills any and all wights it raised, so killing the Night King might destroy every such monster under his command, putting an end to the Great War before it truly begins. Jon dismisses the plan, however, arguing that trying to fight their way through the wights to reach the Night King would be suicide. When Daenerys Targaryen arrives and her dragons burn many wights, the men try to evacuate on Drogon but the wights continue their attack; using an ice javelin, the Night King kills Viserion. The Night King keeps his gaze on an enraged Jon, who appears on the verge of calling him down to fight directly, but his lieutenant hands him another spear. The Night King throws it at Drogon, but the dragon takes flight and dodges in time. Jon stays on the ground to cover the others' departure, but is pulled into the water, and the others are forced to flee on Drogon. Jon emerges from the water and is saved by Benjen Stark, who gives Jon his horse to ride to Eastwatch while sacrificing himself to hold off the wights. After their battle is over, the Night King reanimates Viserion.


title: Night King

text: The undead army arrives at Eastwatch; when the Night King appears, riding Viserion, Tormund orders the defenders to evacuate. Breathing blue fire, Viserion destroys Eastwatch and a section of the Wall, allowing the White Walkers and their wight army to finally invade the Seven Kingdoms while the Night King flies overhead towards the North.


title: Night King

text: Led by the Night King, the dead quickly advance south and attack Last Hearth, massacring the population and adding them to their army, before marching on Winterfell. Bran, knowing that the Night King plans to destroy him, plans to hide in Winterfell's Godswood as bait, with Jon and Daenerys lying in wait with the dragons to ambush him. However, Jon and Daenerys leave their position to attack the wights when they begin overwhelming Winterfell's defenders, and the Night King engages them with Viserion, resulting in Jon and the Night King being dismounted. Daenerys attempts to burn the Night King, not realizing that he is immune to fire, and flees when the Night King attempts to kill her dragon Drogon. Jon attempts to fight the Night King, but the Night King reanimates those killed in battle to protect him. The Night King and the White Walkers head to the Godswood for Bran, and are confronted by Theon Greyjoy, whom the Night King kills. However, before he can kill Bran, he is ambushed by Arya Stark, who destroys him by plunging a dagger made out of Valyrian steel into the Night King's chest. With the Night King dead, the White Walkers shatter and the Army of the Dead collapses.


title: Night King

text: Dark Horse produced a Night King bust in March 2016, which was followed by an 8-inch Night King figure by Dark Horse Deluxe in late 2016. Funko also released a "Night King" POP! figure that same year.


title: Jay Blades

text: Jason Blades (born 21 February 1970) is a British furniture restorer and television presenter. He grew up in Hackney, which in his childhood was a working class area of Inner London, and now lives in Ironbridge in Shropshire.


title: Jay Blades

text: Blades was born in Brent, North London and raised in Hackney, East London with his mother and maternal half-brother. As an adult he learned that his father had 25 other children, from different mothers, in a number of different countries. He has dyslexia, which was not diagnosed at school. He experienced racism at school and from the police. As a young man he worked as a labourer and in factories.


title: Jay Blades

text: He enrolled in Buckinghamshire New University as a mature student to study Criminology. It was only then, aged 31, that he was diagnosed with the reading ability of an 11-year old.


title: Jay Blades

text: Blades and his wife Jade set up a charity based in High Wycombe, Out of the Dark, to train disadvantaged young people in furniture restoration. The charity lost funding, their marriage broke down, and he became homeless. He was supported by friends and by the Caribbean community. Around the same time, television producers saw a short film about the charity which led to his work as a presenter. He moved to Wolverhampton and established Jay & Co, a social enterprise to support disadvantaged and disengaged groups.


title: Jay Blades

text: In 2021 Blades became trustee of a charity founded by singer Leigh-Anne Pinnock, The Black Fund. They had met years previously when Blades ran a youth club and choir which Pinnock, then 14 years old, joined.


title: Jay Blades

text: Also in that year he released a memoir, "Making It: How Love, Kindness and Community Helped Me Repair My Life", published by Pan Macmillan UK.


title: Jay Blades

text: He is best known for presenting "The Repair Shop", "Money for Nothing", "Jay Blades Home Fix" and co-presenting "Jay and Dom's Home Fix".


title: Jay Blades

text: He has also appeared on "Would I Lie to You?", "Celebrity Masterchef", "Richard Osman's House of Games", and "Michael McIntyre's The Wheel".


title: Jay Blades

text: In August 2021, Blades filmed a documentary programme for BBC One, "Jay Blades: Learning to Read at 51", depicting his recent attempts, with the support of the charity Read Easy UK, to improve his literacy. He danced with Luba Mushtuk in the 2021 "Strictly Come Dancing Christmas Special". In May 2022 he appeared in a three-part series on Channel 5 revisiting the area he grew up in, and interviewing childhood friends, experts, and witnesses to history. "Jay Blades: No Place Like Home" featured locations such as Ridley Road Market (the history of anti-fascist action in the 1940s), Newington Green Unitarian Church (slavery and abolitionism), the Pellici cafe (the Kray twins and gangsterism), and the site of the First World War bombing by airship.


title: Jay Blades

text: In September 2022 Blades appeared on BBC Radio 4's "Desert Island Discs" and said that his childhood had been "blighted by racism and violence". In October 2022 Blades was the lead presenter for the edition of "The Repair Shop" which featured king Charles III.


title: Jay Blades

text: Blades lives in Ironbridge in Shropshire. He has three children. His youngest, a daughter, is from his first marriage and he has two sons from previous relationships. Blades married his second wife Lisa Zbozen in Barbados in November 2022.


title: Jay Blades

text: Blades was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2021 Birthday Honours, for services to craft. He was appointed the first Chancellor of Buckinghamshire New University in May 2022.


title: D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai

text: D'Pharaoh Miskwaatez McKay Woon-A-Tai (born 19 September 2001) is a Canadian actor. He is best known for his role as Bear Smallhill in the FX on Hulu comedy-drama series "Reservation Dogs" (2021), for which he was nominated for a Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Actor in a Comedy Series.


title: D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai

text: Woon-A-Tai and his fraternal twin Mi’De Xxavier were born in Toronto. Born D'Pharaoh Miskwaatez Loescher McKay (Mahkaai) Woon-A-Tai, his names reflect his Oji-Cree Anishinaabe, Chinese-Guyanese, and German heritage. A black belt in Shotokan karate, he is the grandson of the notable Shotokan instructor Frank Woon-A-Tai. His paternal grandfather is Dr. Alex McKay, who was the Anishinaabemowin language professor and an integral part of the Indigenous Studies department at the University of Toronto.


title: D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai

text: Woon-A-Tai alongside three (of what would eventually become five) siblings grew up in the Esplanade neighbourhood of Toronto and visited their paternal family in the Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug First Nation at the weekends. He attended Nelson Mandela Park Public School.


title: D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai

text: Woon-A-Tai began his career with a recurring role as Chase Whaley in season 1 of the 2018 Family Channel series "Holly Hobbie". In 2019, Woon-A-Tai played Tom Longboat in a two-episode arc of "Murdoch Mysteries" season 12. He made guest appearances as Lucky in "Creeped Out" and Mikey in "Tribal".


title: D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai

text: Woon-A-Tai made his feature film debut as Hank in the film "Beans" directed by Tracey Deer, which became an official TIFF 2020 selection and won Best Motion Picture at the Canadian Screen Awards.


title: D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai

text: In December 2020, it was announced Woon-A-Tai would star as Bear Smallhill in the 2021 FX on Hulu comedy-drama "Reservation Dogs", "a slice-of-life triumph" from Sterlin Harjo and Taika Waititi. Set and filmed in rural Oklahoma, "Reservation Dogs" is a coming-of-age story that follows the antics of rebellious teenagers living on tribal land. The series' cast and crew are made up entirely of Indigenous people. The "Denver Gazette" described Bear as "played spectacularly by D’Pharaoh, this series' breakout star."


The News International phone hacking scandal was a controversy involving the now-defunct "News of the World" and other British newspapers owned by Rupert Murdoch. Employees of the newspaper were accused of engaging in phone hacking, police bribery, and exercising improper influence in the pursuit of stories. Whilst investigations conducted from 2005 to 2007 appeared to show that the paper's phone hacking activities were limited to celebrities, politicians, and members of the British royal family, in July 2011 it was revealed that the phones of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler, relatives of deceased British soldiers, and victims of the 7 July 2005 London bombings had also been hacked. The resulting public outcry against News Corporation and its owner Rupert Murdoch led to several high-profile resignations, including that of Murdoch as News Corporation director, Murdoch's son James as executive chairman, Dow Jones chief executive Les Hinton, News International legal manager Tom Crone, and chief executive Rebekah Brooks. The commissioner of London's Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), Sir Paul Stephenson, also resigned. Advertiser boycotts led to the closure of the "News of the World" on 10 July 2011, after 168 years of publication. Public pressure forced News Corporation to cancel its proposed takeover of the British satellite broadcaster BSkyB.


title: News International phone hacking scandal

text: The prime minister David Cameron announced on 6 July 2011 that a public inquiry, known as the Leveson Inquiry, would look into phone hacking and police bribery by the "News of the World", consider the wider culture and ethics of the British newspaper industry and that the Press Complaints Commission would be replaced "entirely". A number of arrests and convictions followed, most notably of the former "News of the World" managing editor Andy Coulson.


text: Murdoch and his son, James, were summoned to give evidence at the Leveson Inquiry. Over the course of his testimony, Rupert Murdoch admitted that a cover-up had taken place within the "News of the World" to hide the scope of the phone hacking. On 1 May 2012, a parliamentary select committee report concluded that Murdoch "exhibited wilful blindness to what was going on in his companies and publications" and stated that he was "not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of a major international company". On 3 July 2013, Channel 4 News broadcast a secret tape from earlier that year, in which Murdoch dismissively claims that investigators were "totally incompetent" and acted over "next to nothing" and excuses his papers' actions as "part of the culture of Fleet Street".


text: By 2002, an organised trade in confidential personal information had developed in Britain and was widely used by the British newspaper industry. Illegal means of gaining information used included hacking the private voicemail accounts on mobile phones, hacking into computers, making false statements to officials, entrapment, blackmail, burglaries, theft of mobile phones and making payments to public officials.


text: Private investigators who were illegally providing information to the "News of the World" were also engaged in a variety of other illegal activities. Between 1999 and 2003, several were convicted for crimes including drug distribution, the theft of drugs, child pornography, planting evidence, corruption, and perverting the course of justice. Jonathan Rees and his partner Sid Fillery, a former police officer, were also under suspicion for the murder of private investigator Daniel Morgan. The MPS undertook an investigation of Rees, entitled Operation Nigeria, and tapped his telephone. Substantial evidence was accumulated that Rees was purchasing information from improper sources and that, amongst others, Alex Marunchak of the "News of the World" was paying him up to £150,000 a year for doing so. Jonathan Rees reportedly bought information from former and serving police officers, Customs officers, a VAT inspector, bank employees, burglars, and from blaggers who would telephone the Inland Revenue, the DVLA, banks and phone companies, and deceive them into releasing confidential information. Rees then sold the information to the "News of the World", the "Daily Mirror", the "Sunday Mirror" and the "Sunday Times".


text: The Operation Nigeria bugging ended in September 1999 and Rees was arrested when he was heard planning to plant drugs on a woman so that her husband could win custody of their child. Rees was convicted in 2000 and served a five-year prison sentence. Other individuals associated with Rees who were taped during Operation Nigeria, including Detective Constable Austin Warnes, former detective Duncan Hanrahan, former Detective Constable Martin King and former Detective Constable Tom Kingston, were prosecuted and jailed for various offences unrelated to phone hacking.


text: In June 2002, Fillery had reportedly used his relationship with Alex Marunchak to arrange for private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, then doing work for "News of the World", to obtain confidential information about Detective Chief Superintendent David Cook, one of the police officers investigating the murder of Daniel Morgan. Mulcaire obtained Cook's home address, his internal Metropolitan police payroll number, his date of birth and figures for his mortgage payments as well as physically following him and his family. Attempts to access Cook's voicemail and that of his wife, and possibly hack his computer and intercept his post were also suspected. Documents reportedly held by Scotland Yard show that "Mulcaire did this on the instructions of Greg Miskiw, assistant editor at "News of the World" and a close friend of Marunchak." The Metropolitan Police Service handled this apparent attempt by agents of the "News of the World" to interfere with a murder inquiry by having informal discussions with Rebekah Brooks, then editor for the newspaper. "Scotland Yard took no further action, apparently reflecting the desire of Dick Fedorcio, Director of Public Affairs and Internal Communication for the Met who had a close working relationship with Brooks, to avoid unnecessary friction with the newspaper."


text: No one was charged with illegal acquisition of confidential information as a result of Operation Nigeria, even though the Met reportedly collected hundreds of thousands of incriminating documents during the investigation into Jonathan Rees and his links with corrupt officers. Fillery was convicted for child pornography offences in 2003. Upon Rees' release from prison in 2005, he immediately resumed his investigative work for the "News of the World", where Andy Coulson had succeeded Rebekah Brooks as editor.


text: In 2002, under the title Operation Motorman, the Information Commissioner's Office raided the offices of various newspapers and private investigators, looking for details of personal information kept on unregistered computer databases. The operation uncovered numerous invoices addressed to newspapers and magazines, which detailed prices for the provision of personal information. A total of 305 journalists, working for at least 30 publications, were identified as purchasing confidential information from private investigators. The ICO raided a private investigator named John Boyall, whose specialty was acquiring information from confidential databases. Glenn Mulcaire had been Boyall's assistant, until the autumn of 2001 when the "News of the World's" assistant editor, Greg Miskiw gave him a full-time contract to do work for the newspaper. When the ICO raided Boyall's premises in November 2002 they seized documents that led them to the premises of another private investigator, Steve Whittamore. There they found "more than 13,000 requests for confidential information from newspapers and magazines." This established that confidential information was illegally acquired from telephone companies, the Driver & Vehicle Licensing Agency and the Police National Computer. "Media, especially newspapers, insurance companies and local authorities chasing council tax arrears all appear in the sales ledger" of the agency. Whittamore's network gave him access to confidential records at telephone companies, banks, post offices, hotels, theatres, and prisons, including BT Group, Crédit Lyonnais, Goldman Sachs, Hang Seng Bank, Glen Parva prison, and Stocken prison.


text: Although the ICO issued two reports, "What price privacy?" in May 2006 and "What price privacy now?" in December 2006, much of the information obtained through Operation Motorman was not made public. Although there was evidence of many people being engaged in illegal activity, relatively few were questioned. Operation Motorman's lead investigator said in 2006 that "his team were told not to interview journalists involved. The investigator...accused authorities of being too 'frightened' to tackle journalists." The newspaper with the highest number of requests was the "Daily Mail" with 952 transactions by 58 journalists; the "News of the World" came fifth in the table, with 182 transactions from 19 journalists. The "Daily Mail" rejected the accusations within the report insisting it only used private investigators to confirm public information, such as dates of birth.


text: Learning that Steve Whittamore was obtaining information from the police national computer, the Information Commissioner contacted the Metropolitan Police and the Met's anti-corruption unit initiated Operation Glade. Whittamore's detailed records identified 27 different journalists as having commissioned him to acquire confidential information for which they paid him tens of thousands of pounds. Invoices submitted to News International "sometimes made explicit reference to obtaining a target's details from their phone number or their vehicle registration." Between February 2004 and April 2005, the Crown Prosecution Service charged ten men working for private detective agencies with crimes relating to the illegal acquisition of confidential information. No journalists were charged. Whittamore, Boyall, and two others pleaded guilty in April 2005. According to ICO head Richard Thomas, "each pleaded guilty yet, despite the extent and the frequency of their admitted criminality, each was conditionally discharged [for two years], raising important questions for public policy."


text: On 14 November 2005, the "News of the World" published an article written by royal editor Clive Goodman, claiming that Prince William was in the process of borrowing a portable editing suite from ITV correspondent Tom Bradby. Following the publication, the Prince and Bradby met to try to figure out how the details of their arrangement had been leaked, as only two other people were aware of it. Prince William noted that another equally improbable leak had recently taken place regarding an appointment he had made with a knee surgeon. The Prince and Bradby concluded it was likely that their voicemails were being accessed.


text: The Metropolitan Police set up an investigation under Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke reporting to Assistant Commissioner Andy Hayman, commander of the Specialist Operations directorate, which included royal protection. By January 2006 Clarke's team had concluded that the compromised voice mail accounts belonged to Prince William's aides, not the Prince himself, and that there was an "unambiguous trail" to Clive Goodman, the "News of the World" royal reporter, and to Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator. The detectives put Goodman and Mulcaire under surveillance and, on 8 August 2006, searched Goodman's desk at the "News of the World" and raided Mulcaire's home. There they seized "11,000 pages of handwritten notes listing nearly 4,000 celebrities, politicians, sports stars, police officials and crime victims whose phones may have been hacked." The names included eight members of the royal family and their staff. There were dozens of notebooks, two computers containing 2,978 complete or partial mobile phone numbers and 91 PIN codes, plus 30 tape recordings made by Mulcaire. Significantly, there were at least three names of "News of the World" journalists other than Goodman and a recording of Mulcaire instructing a journalist how to hack into private voice mail. All of this material was taken to Scotland Yard.


text: In August 2006, Goodman and Mulcaire were arrested by the Metropolitan Police, and later charged with hacking the telephones of members of the royal family by accessing voicemail messages, an offence under section 79 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. The "News of the World" had paid Mulcaire £104,988 for his services. In addition, Goodman had paid Mulcaire £12,300 in cash between 9 November 2005 and 7 August 2006, using the code name Alexander on his expenses sheet for him. The court heard that Mulcaire had also hacked into the messages of supermodel Elle Macpherson, former publicist Max Clifford, MP Simon Hughes, football agent Sky Andrew, and Gordon Taylor. On 26 January 2007, both Goodman and Mulcaire pleaded guilty to the charges and were sentenced to four and six months imprisonment respectively. On the same day, Andy Coulson resigned as editor of the "News of the World", while insisting that he had no knowledge of any illegal activities. In March 2007, a senior aide to Rupert Murdoch told a parliamentary committee that a "rigorous internal investigation" found no evidence of widespread hacking at the "News of the World".


text: After Goodman and Mulcaire pleaded guilty, a breach of privacy claim was started by Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Footballers Association who was represented by his solicitor Mark Lewis. That claim settled for a payment of £700,000 including legal costs. James Murdoch agreed the settlement.


text: The Press Complaints Commission, PCC, was the organisation charged with self-regulation of the newspaper and magazine industry in Britain. The PCC's inquiry into phone hacking in 2007 concluded that the practice should stop but that "there is a legitimate place for the use of subterfuge when there are grounds in the public interest to use it and it is not possible to obtain information through other means." "News of the World" editor Colin Myler told the PCC that Goodman's hacking was "aberrational", "a rogue exception" of a single journalist. The PCC opted not to question Andy Coulson on the grounds that he had left the industry, and not to question any other journalist or executive on the paper, apart from Myler, who had no knowledge of what had been going on there before his appointment. The PCC's subsequent report failed to uncover any evidence of any phone hacking by any newspaper beyond that revealed at Goodman's trial.


text: In 2009 the PCC held another inquiry, to see whether they were misled by the "News of the World" in 2007, and if there was any evidence that phone hacking had taken place since then. It concluded it had not been misled and that there was no evidence of ongoing phone hacking. This report and its conclusions were withdrawn on 6 July 2011, two days after it was revealed that Milly Dowler's phone had been hacked.


text: After the 2006 conviction of Clive Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire, and with assurances from "News International", the Press Complaints Commission and the Metropolitan Police Service that no one else had been involved in phone hacking, the public perception was that the matter was closed. Nick Davies and other journalists from "The Guardian", and eventually other newspapers, however continued to examine evidence from court cases and use Freedom of Information Act 2000 requests to find evidence to the contrary.


text: A small number of victims of phone hacking engaged solicitors and made civil claims for invasion of privacy. By March 2010, News International had spent over £2 million settling court cases with victims of phone hacking. As information about these claims leaked out, "The Guardian" continued to follow the story. On 8 & 9 July 2009, the newspaper published three articles alleging that:


text: When the "Guardian" articles were published, Metropolitan Police Service Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson asked Assistant Commissioner John Yates to look at the phone hacking case to see if it should be reopened. Yates reportedly took just eight hours to consult with senior detectives and Crown Prosecution lawyers to conclude there was no fresh material that could lead to further convictions. His review did not include an examination of the thousands of pages of evidence seized in the 2006 Mulcaire raid. In September 2009, Yates maintained his position to the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee saying, "There remain now insufficient grounds or evidence to arrest or interview anyone else and... no additional evidence has come to light." Upon review of the first inquiry, he concluded that there were "hundreds, not thousands of potential victims." Yates told the Committee, "It is very few, it is a handful" of persons that had been subject to hacking. Although Yates was aware of the "Transcript for Neville" email that indicated more than a single rogue reporter was involved, he did not interview Neville Thurlbeck nor any other journalist at the "News of the World", nor look into the cases of victims beyond the eight named in court in 2006. The Committee's findings, released in February 2010, were critical of the police for not pursuing "evidence that merited a wider investigation."


text: The Committee Chairman John Whittingdale also questioned whether the Committee had been misled by several of the News International executives who had testified before it in 2007 that Goodman alone was involved in phone hacking. The Committee again heard evidence from Les Hinton, by then chief executive officer of Dow Jones & Company, and Andy Coulson, by then director of communications for the Conservative Party. Their report concluded that it was "inconceivable" that no one, other than Goodman, knew about the extent of phone hacking at the paper, and that the Committee had "repeatedly encountered an unwillingness to provide the detailed information that we sought, claims of ignorance or lack of recall and deliberate obfuscation".


text: Assistant Commissioner Yates returned to the Committee on 24 March 2011 and defended his position that only ten to twelve victims met the criteria given to the police by the Crown Prosecution Service. The CPS denied that what they had told the Met could be reasonably used to limit the scope of the investigation. Further, they claimed to have been misled by the Met during consultations on the Royal Household inquiry. Met officials reportedly "didn’t discuss certain evidence with senior prosecutors, including the notes suggesting the involvement of other reporters."


text: The Home Affairs Select Committee also questioned Yates in 2009 about the Met's continuing refusal to reopen the investigation "following allegations that 27 other News International reporters had commissioned private investigators to carry out tasks, some of which might have been illegal." Yates responded that he had only looked into the facts of the original 2006 inquiry into Goodmans activities. The Home Affairs Committee began another inquiry on 1 September 2010 and later published a report highly critical of the Met, stating, "The difficulties were offered to us as justifying a failure to investigate further, and we saw nothing that suggested there was a real will to tackle and overcome those obstacles."


text: "The Guardian" continued to be critical of Yates, who responded by hiring a firm of libel lawyers, paid for by the Met, to threaten legal action against anyone that claimed he had misled Parliament. Eventually, as celebrities and politicians continued asking if they had been victims of hacking, Yates directed that the evidence from the Mulcaire raid, that had been stored in bin bags for three years, finally be entered into a computer database. Ten people were assigned the task. Yates himself did not look at the evidence saying later, "I’m not going to go down and look at bin bags. I am supposed to be an Assistant Commissioner." He did not re-open the investigation.


text: Days after the settlement with Gordon Taylor was revealed by "The Guardian" in July 2009, Max Clifford, another of the eight victims named in 2006, announced his intentions to sue. In March 2010, News International agreed to settle his suit for £1,000,000, a much greater than expected settlement if hacking Clifford's phone was the only issue. These two awards encouraged other victims to explore legal redress, resulting in more and more phone hacking queries to the Metropolitan Police, which they were often slow to respond to. One commentator observed that "the Goodman-Mulcaire revelations and subsequent prosecution were supposed to have settled the hacking matter forever and might have done just that, except that successful law suits... kept popping up against News of the World after the convictions."


text: On 15 December 2010, "The Guardian" reported that some of the documents seized from Glenn Mulcaire in 2006 by the Metropolitan Police Service and only recently disclosed in open court, implied that "News of the World" editor Ian Edmondson specifically instructed Mulcaire to hack voice messages of Sienna Miller, Jude Law, and several others. The documents also implied that Mulcaire was engaged by "News of the World" chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck and assistant editor Greg Miskiw, who had then worked directly for editor Andy Coulson. This contradicted testimony to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee by News International executives and senior Met officials that there was no evidence of hacking by anyone other than Mulcaire and Goodman.


text: The Metropolitan Police announced on 26 January 2011 that it would begin a new investigation into phone hacking, following the receipt of "significant new information" regarding the conduct of "News of the World" employees. Operation Weeting would take place alongside the previously announced review of phone hacking evidence by the Crown Prosecution Service. Between 45 and 60 officers began looking over the 11,000 pages of evidence seized from Mulcaire in August 2006.


text: Having failed thus far to put the phone hacking issue to rest, News International's law firm, Hickman & Rose, hired former Director of Public Prosecutions Ken Macdonald to review the emails that News International executives had used as the basis of their claim that no one at the "News of the World" but Clive Goodman had been involved in phone hacking. Macdonald immediately concluded, regardless of whether others had been involved, that there was clear evidence of criminal activity, including payments to serving police officers. Macdonald arranged for this evidence to be turned over to the Met, which led to their opening in July 2011 of Operation Elveden, an investigation focused on bribery and corruption within the Met's ranks.


text: The first arrests as part of Operation Weeting were made on 5 April 2011. Ian Edmondson and the "News of the World" chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck were arrested on suspicion of unlawfully intercepting voicemail messages. Both men had denied participating in illegal activities. The paper's assistant news editor, James Weatherup, was taken into custody for questioning by the Metropolitan Police on 14 April 2011. He had also dealt with some major fiscal issues, "managing huge budgets" and "crisis management" at the newspaper.


text: "The Guardian", referring to the Information Commissioner's report of 2006, queried why the Metropolitan Police chose to exclude a large quantity of material relating to Jonathan Rees from the scope of its Operation Weeting inquiry. The "News of the World" was said to have made extensive use of Rees' investigative services, including phone hacking, paying him up to £150,000 a year. On the basis of evidence obtained during Operation Nigeria, Rees was found guilty in December 2000 of attempting to pervert the course of justice and received a seven-year prison sentence. After he was released from prison the "News of the World", under the editorship of Andy Coulson, began commissioning Rees' services again.


text: "The Guardian" journalist Nick Davies described commissions from the "News of the World" as the "golden source" of income for Rees' "empire of corruption", which involved a network of contacts with corrupt police officers and a pattern of illegal behaviour extending far beyond phone hacking. Despite detailed evidence, the Metropolitan Police failed to pursue effective in-depth investigations into Rees' corrupt relationship with the "News of the World" over more than a decade.


text: On 12 July 2011, Metropolitan Police deputy assistant commissioner Sue Akers told MPs and the Home Affairs committee chairman Keith Vaz that police had contacted 170 of the 3,870 people named in Glenn Mulcaire's files to date.


text: News International announced on 8 April 2011 that it would admit liability in some of the breach of privacy cases being brought in relation to phone hacking by the "News of the World". The company offered an unreserved apology and compensation to eight claimants, but would continue to contest allegations made by other litigants.


text: At the time of News International's announcement, 24 individuals were in the process of taking legal action against the "News of the World" on breach of privacy grounds. Comic actor Steve Coogan was reported to be one of the suspected victims of phone hacking.


text: Hoppen lodged a further claim against the "News of the World" and one of its reporters, Dan Evans, for "accessing or attempting to access her voicemail messages between June 2009, and March 2010". News International has not admitted liability in relation to the claim.


text: On 10 April, Tessa Jowell and her former husband David Mills, Andy Gray, Sky Andrew, Nicola Phillips, Joan Hammell, and Kelly Hoppen all received the official apology and compensation, but actor Leslie Ash and John Prescott, who both had also claimed breach of privacy, did not.


text: Scottish politician Danny Alexander predicted further arrests would be made. The shadow Secretary of State for Wales Peter Hain called on the legal authorities to conduct a "full and proper public investigation" and then claimed the police investigation had been "tardy".


text: The first individual to accept the "News of the World" apology and compensation was actress Sienna Miller, who received £100,000 plus legal costs. Sports pundit Andy Gray followed in June, accepting a payout of £20,000 plus legal costs. Prior to the settlements, both individuals' litigation claims had been identified as phone hacking "test cases" to be heard in January 2012.


text: The BBC reported on 20 May 2011 that a senior "News of the World" executive was implicated, according to actor Jude Law's barrister in the High Court. This report also said that the number of people whose phones may have been hacked may be much larger than previously thought. The High Court was said to have been told that "notebooks belonging to a private investigator hired by News Group Newspapers contained thousands of mobile phone numbers" and "police also found 149 individual personal identification numbers and almost 400 unique voicemail numbers which can be used to access voice mail".


text: In January 2012 it was reported that Respect politician George Galloway, who was not an MP at the time, had settled out of court. Galloway had begun legal proceedings for breach of privacy in 2010 after being told by the Met that he had probably been targeted by Mulcaire. The terms of the settlement were not disclosed. Galloway said the apology was a cynical attempt to protect Rebekah Brooks.


text: In April, "The Observer" reported claims from a former minister that Rupert Murdoch tried to persuade Prime Minister Gordon Brown early in 2010 to help in resisting attempts by Labour MPs and peers to investigate the affair, and to go easy on "News of the World" in the run-up to the UK's general election of May 2010. News International described the report as "total rubbish"; a spokesperson for Brown declined to comment.


text: It was first reported by "The Guardian" on 4 July 2011 that police had found evidence suggesting that the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire collected personal information about the family of the missing Surrey teenager Milly Dowler, following her disappearance in March 2002 and the discovery of her body six months later. According to the paper, journalists working for the "News of the World" had hired private investigators to hack into Dowler's voicemail inbox shortly after her disappearance. It was alleged that they had deleted some messages, giving false hope to police and to Dowler's family, who thought that she might have deleted the messages and therefore might still be alive and potentially destroying valuable evidence about her abduction and any evidence against a potential abductor and murderer.


text: Levi Bellfield had been convicted of the murder just two weeks before these revelations – he had already been convicted of two murders and an attempted murder which took place after Milly's disappearance and the discovery of her body. It was later established that Dowler's phone had deleted the messages automatically, 72 hours after being listened to. "The Guardian" commented that the "News of the World" did not conceal from its readers in an article on 14 April 2002 that it had intercepted telephone messages and also informed Surrey police of this fact on 27 March 2002, six days after Milly went missing.


text: In July 2011, it was announced that the Dowler family was preparing a claim for damages against the "News of the World". News Group Newspapers described the allegation as "a development of great concern". Reacting to the revelation, Prime Minister David Cameron said that the alleged hacking, if true, was "truly dreadful". He added that police ought to pursue a "vigorous" investigation to ascertain what had taken place. Leader of the opposition Ed Miliband called on Rebekah Brooks, the "News of the World" editor in 2002, and then the chief executive of News International, to "consider her conscience and consider her position". Brooks denied knowledge of phone hacking during her editorship.


text: It was in the wake of the Dowler allegations that a significant number of people, including former deputy prime minister John Prescott and other politicians, began seriously to question whether the takeover of BSkyB by News Corporation should be vetoed by the appropriate government authorities. The Media Standards Trust formed the pressure group "Hacked Off", to campaign for a public inquiry. Soon after launch, the campaign gained the support of suspected hacking victim, the actor Hugh Grant, who became a public spokesperson, appearing on "Question Time" and "Newsnight."


text: In January 2012, it was revealed that Surrey Police had discovered during the early stages of their inquiries that News of the World staff had accessed Amanda Dowler's mobile phone messages but did not take issue with this. Instead, a senior Surrey officer invited News of the World staff to a meeting to discuss the case.


text: On 6 July 2011, "The Daily Telegraph" reported that the voicemail accounts of some relatives of British soldiers killed in action in Iraq since 2003 and Afghanistan since 2001 may have been eavesdropped by the "News of the World". The personal details and phone numbers belonging to relatives of dead service personnel were found in the Glen Mulcaire's files. In response to the allegations, The Royal British Legion announced that it would suspend all ties with the "News of the World", dropping the newspaper as its campaigning partner.


text: On the day before the sixth anniversary of the 7 July 2005 London bombings, it was reported that relatives of some victims may have had their telephones snooped on by the "News of the World" in the aftermath of the attacks. A man who lost two children in the bombings told the BBC that police officers investigating phone hacking had warned him that their contact details were found on a target list, while a former firefighter who helped rescue injured passengers also said he had been contacted by police who were looking into the hacking allegations. A number of survivors from the bombings revealed that police had warned them their phones may have been hacked and their messages intercepted; in some cases they were advised to change security codes and PINs.


text: On 28 July, "The Guardian" reported that the "News of the World" hacked into the voicemail of media campaigner Sara Payne, whose seven-year-old daughter, Sarah Payne, was murdered in West Sussex by paedophile Roy Whiting, in July 2000. This news was arguably met with even more public outrage than the Dowler revelations, given the prominent role that Rebekah Brooks and the "News of the World" played in the passage of Sarah's Law, which changed sex offender laws in the UK. Sara Payne has been an active campaigner in favour of such laws with News International and other media and charity organisations since her daughter's death.


text: Brooks developed a long-standing friendship with Sara Payne in the years after her daughter's death; Payne wrote a column praising the "News of the World" support for Sarah's Law in its final issue, writing that the paper's staff "supported me through some of the darkest, most difficult times of my life and became my trusted friends". Brooks used the Sarah's Law campaign to defend the "News of the World" when she was questioned by the Culture, Media and Sport Committee.


text: Scotland Yard had reportedly found materials pertaining to Payne in Glenn Mulcaire's notes. They also discovered that Payne's voicemail was on a mobile phone given to her by Brooks, ostensibly to help her keep in touch with supporters. Brooks issued a statement denying that the "News of the World" was aware of Mulcaire's targeting of Payne, saying that such an idea was "unthinkable". Payne was said to be "absolutely devastated and deeply disappointed" at the disclosure.


text: Some email messages were discovered suggesting Jonathan Rees made requests for sums of around £1,000 for contact details of senior members of the Royal Family and friends.


text: Former deputy prime minister John Prescott claimed he knew of "direct evidence" indicating "The Sunday Times" was involved in illegal news gathering activities. Former prime minister Gordon Brown alleged his bank account was accessed by "The Sunday Times" in 2000, and that "The Sun" gained private medical records about his son, Fraser, who has cystic fibrosis. Rebekah Brooks telephoned Brown to tell him that "The Sun" was going to reveal that his son had been diagnosed with cystic fibrosis and tried to persuade him not to spoil the newspaper's exclusive by announcing it himself first. "The Guardian" later ran a front-page story accusing "The Sun" of improperly obtaining the medical records of Brown's son, but was later forced to issue an apology upon discovering that the information came from a member of the public.


text: Other victims of hacking included former Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner John Yates, who revealed on 12 January 2011 that his phone was hacked between 2004 and 2005. The phone of chat show host Paul O'Grady was also hacked by the "News of the World" after he suffered a heart attack in 2006.


text: In May 2012 it was reported that billionaire Robert Agostinelli had been targeted by a private detective named Steve Whitamore working for Rupert Murdoch's newspaper to gain confidential information pertaining to Agostinelli's business affairs – this evidence brought to light the fact that high-profile U.S citizens were targeted by private investigators in the UK within Rupert Murdoch's empire. This was revealed once the Information Commissioner's Office raided Steve Whittamore's offices and was subsequently convicted of illegally trading personal information.


text: In July 2011 it was reported that Mark Stephens had been one of a group of high-profile lawyers who may have been the victim of "News International phone hacking scandal".


text: Mary Ellen Field, the former business manager of model Elle Macpherson, lost her job after Field was accused of leaking confidential information to the "News of the World", which had published a story about Macpherson's split with Arpad Busson. Field realised their voicemails could have been intercepted after Glenn Mulcaire admitted in court to accessing Macpherson's phones.


text: A cousin of Jean Charles de Menezes, the Brazilian man shot dead by police who mistook him for a fugitive suspected of involvement in the 21 July 2005 attempted bombings in London, may also have had his phone hacked by the "News of the World" after Menezes's death. A spokesperson from the Justice4Jean campaign group said: "The Menezes family are deeply pained to find their phones may have been hacked at a time at which they were at their most vulnerable and bereaved."


text: Carole Caplin, the former fitness adviser to Prime Minister Tony Blair, announced that the Metropolitan police had told her that her mobile phone was probably hacked, dating back to 2002 – along with the Milly Dowler case in the same year, this is one of the earliest cases so far discovered.


text: The closure of the "News of the World" after 168 years in print, was the first significant effect of the scandal. In the days leading up to 7 July 2011, Virgin Holidays, The Co-operative Group, Ford Motor Company and General Motors (owner of Vauxhall Motors) had all pulled their advertisements from the "News of the World" in response to the unfolding controversy. Several other major advertisers also considered doing the same.


text: James Murdoch announced on 7 July 2011 that after 168 years in print the "News of the World" would publish its last-ever edition on 10 July, with the loss of 200 jobs. News Corporation said that all profits from the final edition would go to good causes. Downing Street said it had no role in the decision. James Murdoch conceded the paper was "sullied by behaviour that was wrong", saying "if recent allegations are true, it was inhuman and has no place in our company."


text: Other executives of the company said the phone hacking was more widespread than previously believed and that they are co-operating with investigations into the allegations. Editor Rebekah Brooks told staff at a meeting, that she recognised following an internal investigation that "other shoes would drop", a phrase indicating that further revelations of wrongdoing would follow.


text: There was immediate speculation that News International would launch a Sunday edition of "The Sun" to replace its sister paper "News of the World". "The Sun on Sunday" was launched on 26 February 2012.


text: Rupert Murdoch announced on 13 July 2011 that News Corporation was withdrawing its proposal to take full control of the subscription television broadcaster BSkyB, due to concerns over the ongoing furore. The announcement was made a few hours before the House of Commons was due to debate a motion, supported by all major parties, calling on News Corporation to withdraw its proposal. In a symbolic gesture the House later passed the motion unanimously by acclamation.


text: In the week of 22 August 2011, Wireless Generation, a subsidiary of News Corporation, lost a no-bid contract with New York State to build an information system, for tracking student performance as a consequence of the News International phone hacking scandal. Citing, "... vendor responsibility issues with the parent company of Wireless Generation," state comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said that the revelations surrounding News Corporation had made the final approval of the contract "untenable".


text: A number of senior employees and executives resigned from News International and its parent company, after the emergence of the new allegations, along with high-ranking officers of the Metropolitan Police Service. News International's legal manager Tom Crone left the company on 13 July. As part of his role at the publisher, Crone had served as the "News of the World" chief lawyer and gave evidence before parliamentary committees, that he had uncovered no evidence of phone hacking beyond the criminal offences committed by the royal editor Clive Goodman. He maintained that he did not see an internal report suggesting that phone hacking at the paper went beyond Goodman.


text: On 15 July, Rebekah Brooks, the chief executive of News International, quit following widespread criticism of her role in the controversy. In a statement, Brooks said that "my desire to remain on the bridge has made me a focal point of the debate" and stated that she would "concentrate on correcting the distortions and rebutting the allegations about my record". Her exit was welcomed by political leaders. Prime Minister David Cameron's office said that her departure was "the right decision", while Leader of the Opposition Ed Miliband agreed but suggested that she should have departed ten days earlier. Tom Mockridge, the long-time chief executive of the Italian satellite broadcaster Sky Italia, was announced as Brooks' replacement at the head of News International.


text: Later that day, Les Hinton resigned as the chief executive of the News Corporation subsidiary Dow Jones & Company. Hinton had served as chief executive of News International between 1997 and 2005. He had told parliamentary committees that there was "never any evidence" of phone hacking beyond the case of Clive Goodman. In his resignation announcement, Hinton said that he was not told of "evidence that wrongdoing went further" but indicated that he nevertheless felt it "proper" to resign from his position.


text: On 17 July, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and Britain's most senior police officer, Sir Paul Stephenson, announced his resignation with immediate effect. He had faced criticism for hiring former "News of the World" executive editor Neil Wallis as an advisor and for having received free hospitality at a luxury health spa owned by a company for which Wallis also worked. Stephenson's resignation was followed by that of assistant commissioner John Yates on 18 July. Yates had been criticised for failing to re-open the original 2006 investigation into phone hacking at News International, despite new evidence coming to light in 2009. In the wake of the later 2012 allegations against "The Sun" and arrests of executives, senior reporters and other personnel, James Murdoch resigned from his posts as News International executive chairman and BSkyB chairman on 1 March 2012. Later that July, Rupert Murdoch resigned from his directorships at Times Newspaper Holdings, NewsCorp Investments and News International Group Limited.


text: Matt Nixson was escorted by security from the Wapping headquarters of "The Sun" newspaper the evening of 20 July 2011. His computer was seized by News International officials and the police were said to have been informed. Nixson was a features editor at "The Sun". It was reported that Nixson's dismissal was related to the time he spent at the "News of the World" from 2006, when it was edited by Coulson. At the "News of the World" he reported to assistant editor Ian Edmondson. On 20 September it was reported that the Metropolitan police had written to News International to inform them that they did not intend to question Nixson over phone hacking. Nixson was reported to be considering bringing a case for unfair dismissal against his former employers.


text: Pending the result of an Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC – see below) enquiry into his dealings with Neil Wallis (see below), a former assistant editor of the News of the World, Dick Fedorcio, director of public affairs and internal communication for the Metropolitan Police, was put on extended leave 10 August 2011.


text: Details emerged 7 September 2011 that senior journalist Amelia Hill of "The Guardian" was questioned under caution but not arrest, for several hours by officers from Operation Weeting the previous week. Hill had reported the names of individuals linked to the phone hacking scandal minutes after their arrests and it is thought her questioning was linked to the earlier arrest of a 51-year-old detective suspected of leaking information to the newspaper.


text: From 15 July, onwards, News Corp began to change its position through a series of public apologies. On 15 July, Rupert Murdoch in interview with the News Corp owned "The Wall Street Journal" apologised for the "News of the World" letting slip the group's standards of journalism. Murdoch also alleged that the group's legal advisers, Harbottle & Lewis, had made "a major mistake" in its part in the internal investigation into phone-hacking in 2007. On 18 July, Harbottle & Lewis issued an open letter outlining its position, and appointed Luther Pendragon to handle PR issues relating to the affair.


text: On 16 and 17 July, News International published two full-page apologies in many of Britain's national newspapers. The first apology took the form of a letter, signed by Rupert Murdoch, in which he said sorry for the "serious wrongdoing" that occurred. The second was titled "Putting right what's gone wrong", and gave more detail about the steps News International was taking to address the public's concerns.


text: On the afternoon before the ads were published, Rupert Murdoch also attended a private meeting in London with the family of Milly Dowler, where he apologised for the hacking of their murdered daughter's voicemail. The Dowler family's solicitor later said Murdoch appeared shaken and upset during the talks. He added that the Dowlers were surprised Murdoch's son James did not attend and called on the News International chairman to "take some responsibility" in the affair.


text: In February 2013 News International expressed "sincere" contrition and paid undisclosed "substantial" damages for a total of 144 cases. Among 17 phone-hacking victims given public apologies by News International in the High Court were Sarah, Duchess of York, actors Hugh Grant and Christopher Eccleston, the Catholic parish priest of singer Charlotte Church, singer James Blunt, Uri Geller, Geoffrey Robinson, the former Labour minister, and Colin Stagg, the man wrongly accused of the murder of Rachel Nickell. Mr Stagg, one of the few to have his damages disclosed, was awarded £15,500. Others who settled but opted to keep the terms of the arrangement private, included Cherie Blair, the wife of the former prime minister, UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage, TV presenters Jamie Theakston and Chris Tarrant, Ted Beckham, the father of the former England football captain, former Tory minister David Maclean, Baron Blencathra, actor James Nesbitt, footballer Wayne Rooney and BBC reporter Tom Mangold.


text: In March 2013, audio emerged of Rupert Murdoch in a staff meeting at the Sun criticising the Police for continuing their investigation, and portraying the paper as the victim, not those they had paid damages to a month earlier.


text: Since 1999, over 100 people have been arrested in conjunction with illegal acquisition of confidential information. Over 90 of these have been arrested or rearrested since police investigations were renewed in 2011. Of these, 26 have been formally charged with crimes.


text: "The Guardian" reported on 7 July 2011, that former "News of the World" editor and David Cameron's former spokesman Andy Coulson was to be arrested the following day, along with a senior journalist the paper refused to name.


text: although the Metropolitan Police would only confirm that a "43-year-old man" had been arrested for "conspiring to intercept communications", he was then released without charge.


text: On 30 May 2012, Coulson was charged with perjury, and later that year his and Rebekah Brooks' trial date was set for 9 September 2013.


text: In June 2014, Coulson was found guilty of one charge of conspiracy to intercept voicemails and he was sentenced to 18 months in prison on 4 July 2014. On 21 November 2014, Coulson was released from prison having served less than five months of his 18-month prison sentence.


text: Coulson was to face a retrial after the jury failed to agree a verdict on two other charges of conspiring to cause misconduct in public office in relation to the alleged purchase of confidential royal phone directories in 2005 from a palace police officer. On 17 April 2015, the Crown Prosecution Service announced that Coulson's prosecution was to be dropped.


text: Former "News of the World" executive editor Neil Wallis was arrested in west London on 14 July, on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications. He joined the paper in 2003 as a deputy to Coulson and in 2007, became an executive editor before leaving in 2009. Later that year his media consultancy company began to advise Paul Stephenson and John Yates, two high-ranking Metropolitan Police officers, providing "strategic communications advice" until September 2010. During that time, Yates made the decision that the phone hacking needed no further investigation, despite "The Guardian" alleging that the previous investigation had been inadequate. He was also paid to advise commissioner Stephenson and Yates.


text: Rebekah Brooks, the former editor of the "News of the World" and former chief executive of News International, was arrested on 17 July 2011 on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications and on suspicion of corruption. She was arrested by appointment at a London police station by detectives working on Operation Weeting, the Metropolitan Police's phone hacking investigation, and Operation Elveden, the probe examining illicit payments to police officers.


text: On 18 July, police reported the discovery of a rubbish bag containing a laptop, documents, and a phone dumped in an underground parking garage near Brooks' home. Brooks' husband had initially tried to claim the trash bag, which he said contained his property unrelated to the investigation.


text: Ms. Brooks was arrested again in March 2012, this time on suspicion of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. Her husband, Charlie Brooks, was arrested with her. Two months later, on 15 May 2012, they were both charged along with four others with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice by allegedly removing documents and computers from "News International" offices to conceal them from investigating detectives.


text: Stuart Kuttner, the former managing editor of the "News of the World", was arrested on 2 August 2011 on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications and on suspicion of corruption. He was arrested by appointment at a London police station by Operation Weeting and Operation Elveden detectives. (Kuttner was re-arrested 30 August, for further questioning.) On 24 July 2012, he was formally charged with conspiracy to intercept communications between 3 October 2000 to 9 August 2006 without lawful authority regarding communications of Milly Dowler and David Blunkett, MP.


text: Eight days later, Greg Miskiw, a former "News of the World" news editor, was arrested on suspicion of unlawful interception of communications and conspiring to intercept communications. He was arrested by appointment at a London police station by detectives working on Operation Weeting, the police investigation into phone hacking. On 24 July 2012, he was charged with conspiracy to intercept communications without lawful authority during the period from 3 October 2000 to 9 August 2006 from the phones of Milly Dowler, Sven-Göran Eriksson, Abigail Titmuss, John Leslie Andrew Gilchrist, David Blunkett MP, Delia Smith, Charles Clarke MP, Jude Law, Sadie Frost, Sienna Miller, and Wayne Rooney .


text: James Desborough was arrested after arriving, by appointment, at a south London police station the morning of 18 August 2011 for questioning concerning criminal activities at the "News of the World". His arrest was based on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications. Desborough was promoted to be the newspaper's Los Angeles-based US editor in 2009. Prior to that appointment, he was an award-winning show-business reporter based in London.


text: Dan Evans, a former reporter for "News of the World", was arrested and later bailed on 19 August 2011. An unnamed 30-year-old man was arrested and later bailed on 2 September 2011.


text: In an early morning raid on his North London home on 7 September 2011, deputy football editor of "The Times" Raoul Simons (on extended leave from his job since September 2010) was arrested and held for questioning on suspicion of conspiracy to intercept voicemail messages by police officers from Operation Weeting.


text: A reporter working for "The Sun" was arrested and taken to a southwest London police station at 10.30 am on 4 November 2011. The man is the sixth person to be arrested in the UK under the "News International"-related legal probe, Operation Elveden.


text: The 48-year-old "The Sun" journalist Jamie Pyatt had been arrested by detectives on 4 November 2011 investigating illegal payments to police officers by journalists and has been released on bail.


text: On 2 October 2012, two individuals associated with the earliest investigations (1999) into the phone hacking scandal were arrested. Private investigator Jonathan Rees and "News of the World" journalist Alex Marunchak were arrested for alleged offences under section 3 of the Computer Misuse Act 1990 and sections 1 and 2 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 by police officers working on Operation Kalmyk, part of Operation Tuleta dealing with computer hacking. These arrests came thirteen years after Rees' premises were raided under Operation Nigeria, during which large amounts of evidence indicating widespread illegal trafficking in confidential information was seized by the Metropolitan Police Service. Marunchak was arrested by Scotland Yard detectives on 2 October 2012 and remained on bail for 23 months until 16 September 2014 when he was released from bail. In a formal letter to him the following year, on 9 September 2015, the Crown Prosecution Service stated it had "concluded that there is insufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction in respect of offences contrary to the Computer Misuse Act (for ‘computer hacking’ offences)", "that there is insufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction for any associated or alternative offences" and "that no further action be taken in relation to this matter." Despite Marunchak's arrest in 2012 he was never charged nor brought to court.


text: On 14 July, the Culture, Media and Sport Committee of the House of Commons served a summons on Rupert Murdoch, James Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks, expecting them to appear before the parliamentary committee on 19 July. After an initial invitation to give evidence to the committee, Brooks stated she would attend but the Murdochs declined. Rupert Murdoch claimed to be unavailable on that date but said he would be "fully prepared" to give evidence in Leveson's inquiry, while James Murdoch offered to appear on an alternative date, the earliest of which was 10 August. The Murdochs did, however, later confirm they would attend after the committee issued them a summons to Parliament.


text: Unbeknown to members of the Culture Committee, the NOTW established a team to investigate their private lives. For several days, as chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck would later tell Tom Watson, reporters searched for any secret lovers or extra-marital affairs that could be used as leverage against the MPs.


text: Thurlbeck said: "All I know is that, when the DCMS [Department of Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee] was formed or rather when it got onto all the hacking stuff, there was an edict came down from the editor and it was find out every single thing you can about every single member: who was gay, who had affairs, anything we can use.


text: "Each reporter was given two members and there were six reporters that went on for around 10 days. I don't know who looked at you. It fell by the wayside; I think even Ian Edmondson [the news editor] realised there was something quite horrible about doing this."


text: At their appearance before the committee, Rupert Murdoch said it had been "the most humble day of my life" and argued that since he ran a global business of 53,000 employees and that the "News of the World" was "just 1 percent" of this, he was not ultimately responsible for what went on at the tabloid; he added that he had not considered resigning. Meanwhile, his son James described the "illegal voicemail interceptions" as a "matter of great regret" but that the company was "determined to put things right and make sure they do not happen again". James Murdoch stated that News International had based its "push back" against new allegations on the combination of three pieces of evidence: that the Metropolitan Police had closed their investigation, that the Crown Prosecution Service had closed their prosecution and that they had received written advice from their legal advisors Harbottle & Lewis, that there was nothing to suggest phone hacking was not the work of one "rogue reporter" working with private investigator Glenn Mulcaire. Towards the end of the Murdochs' two hours of evidence, a protester sitting in the public gallery, identified as comedian Jonnie Marbles, threw a shaving-foam pie at Rupert Murdoch. The incident propelled Murdoch's wife, Wendi Deng Murdoch, into the media spotlight for her athletic response in defence of her husband. Marbles later said that he had "much respect" for Deng for fighting back. Marbles, real name Jonathan May-Bowles, was sentenced to six weeks in prison for the attack.


text: Harbottle & Lewis later commented that it could not respond to "any inaccurate statements or contentions" about the 2007 letter to News International due to client confidentiality. Later on the same day, giving evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee, former director of public prosecutions Lord MacDonald stated that it took him "three to five minutes" to decide that the same emails contained in the file passed to Harbottle & Lewis contained "blindingly obvious" evidence of corrupt payments to police officers, which had to be immediately passed to the Metropolitan Police.


text: She began by calling the practice of phone hacking at the newspaper she edited as "pretty horrific". Upon questioning, she confirmed that under her editorship she knew the "News of the World" hired private detectives but denied having ever met Glenn Mulcaire.


text: The testimony of James Murdoch was questioned by two former News International executives. Murdoch had denied reading or being aware of an email, sent after he authorised an out-of-court payment to Gordon Taylor over the hacking of his phone, which suggested the practice was more widely used than just by a rogue "News of the World" reporter. A former editor of the newspaper, Colin Myler and Tom Crone, the former News International legal manager, both said they "did inform" him of the email.


text: On 18 July, News Corporation announced that its UK management standards committee would be removed from News International. It will now be housed in a separate building, under the chairmanship of Lord Grabiner, and reporting to News Corporation director Joel Klein. As a result, existing News International executives Will Lewis and Simon Greenberg will resign their existing positions with News International and become News Corporation employees, focused initially on the clean-up of News International. In September 2011 it was reported that the MSC was not issuing employees of News International who had had their contracts terminated with the reasons for their dismissal in case this would compromise the ongoing police inquiry.


text: On 18 July, former "News of the World" journalist Sean Hoare, who was the first reporter to tell of "endemic" phone hacking at the publication for which he used to work, was found dead at his home in Watford, Hertfordshire. A police spokesperson said the death was treated as "unexplained" but not suspicious. In November 2011, the coroner for Hertfordshire concluded that Hoare died of natural causes after suffering from liver disease.


text: On 20 July, "Private Eye" asked how the "Sunday Mirror" had, early in 2003, obtained a transcript of phone calls by Angus Deayton and in October 2003 had come into possession of every call and text message made by Rio Ferdinand one afternoon (when he claimed to have missed a drugs test due to having his mobile switched off). The latter story was co-written by James Weatherup, who moved to the "News of the World" the following year.


text: On 22 July, former "Daily Mirror" financial journalist James Hipwell spoke to "The Independent", claiming that the practice had been "endemic" at the Mirror during his time there under the editorship of Piers Morgan.


text: He also alleged that phone hacking took place at some of the Mirror's sister publications. Trinity Mirror, the publisher of the "Daily Mirror" and "Sunday Mirror", rejected Hipwell's claims. A spokesman said: "Our position is clear... Our journalists work within the criminal law and the Press Complaints Commission code of conduct." The BBC's "Newsnight" programme reported other sources at the "Sunday Mirror" confirming use of phone hacking, with one source saying "At one point in 2004, it seemed like it was the only way people were getting scoops." It was also said that the paper made use of private investigators. On 26 July Trinity Mirror announced an internal review of its editorial procedures.


text: On 3 August, Heather Mills alleged that a senior journalist working for Trinity Mirror had admitted to her in 2001 that the company had access to voicemail messages which they knew to have been obtained by hacking. In response Trinity Mirror repeated the statement used in rejecting James Hipwell's claims, saying "Our position is clear. All our journalists work within the criminal law and the PCC code of conduct."


text: Also on 3 August, Piers Morgan issued a statement through CNN, his employer, that "I have never hacked a phone, told anyone to hack a phone, nor to my knowledge published any story obtained from the hacking of a phone." The statement omitted comment on whether he had any knowledge of phone hacking by employees or paid contractors of the Mirror during the period he was editor there.


text: That Morgan did have knowledge of phone hacking is suggested in his own 2006 article in the "Daily Mail", regarding a phone message from Paul McCartney to his girlfriend Heather Mills. On 3 August, Heather Mills told BBC's Newsnight: "There was absolutely no honest way that Piers Morgan could have obtained that tape ... unless they had gone into my voice messages."


text: During the internal investigation into the unfair dismissal claim against News Group Newspapers Limited by Clive Goodman, News International hired law firm Harbottle & Lewis (H&L) and passed on hundreds of internal emails to them. Lawrence Abramson of Harbottle & Lewis wrote a letter on 29 May 2007, to News International head of legal affairs Jon Chapman, which said that they had:


text: The letter from Abramson to Chapman makes no mention of whether the e-mails contain evidence of wrongdoing by journalists other than Goodman.


text: It was reported that NI executives urged H&L to give them a clean bill of health in the strongest possible terms, that earlier draft letters by H&L were rejected by NI and that lawyers on both sides seemed to struggle to find language that said the review had found no evidence of wrongdoing. This information was provided by "two people familiar with both the contents of the e-mails and the discussions between the executives and the law firm". This letter was used by various News International executives in their defence during a parliamentary investigation into phone hacking in 2009.


text: In July 2011, Rupert Murdoch alleged in interview with "The Wall Street Journal" that H&L made "a major mistake" in its part in an internal investigation into phone-hacking at News International. On 18 July 2011, H&L issued an open letter outlining its position, and appointed Luther Pendragon to handle PR issues relating to the affair. On 19 July, Lord MacDonald the former Director of Public Prosecutions engaged by News Corporation to review the emails handed to Harbottle & Lewis in 2007, said in evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee:


text: At his appearance before the Culture, Media and Sport Committee on 19 July, James Murdoch stated that News International had based its "push back" against new allegations on the combination of three pieces of evidence and one of these was the written advice from H&L.


text: On 20 July, H&L issued a statement saying that they had asked News International to release them from their professional duty of confidentiality, which had been declined by News International. The company had since written to John Whittingdale MP, chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, asking to provide evidence to the committee.