page_title: List of investigations, resignations, suspensions, and dismissals in conjunction with the news media phone hacking scandal
section_title: By private organizations
hierarchical_section_title: List of investigations, resignations, suspensions, and dismissals in conjunction with the news media phone hacking scandal / By private organizations
caption_attribution_description: English: Press Complaints Commission in Salisbury Square
context_page_description: This List of investigations, resignations, suspensions, and dismissals in conjunction with the news media phone hacking scandal is a chronological listing of investigations, actual and considered, into illegal acquisition of confidential information or cover-up by employees or other agents of news media companies in conjunction with the phone hacking scandal. Investigations listed here concern interception of voicemail, hacking of computers, obtaining confidential information under false pretenses, and payments to officials. Dates in parentheses indicate approximately when each investigation was initiated or considered.
  Prior to 2010 investigations focused on just a few individuals, even though there was evidence of many people being engaged in illegal activity. "The lead investigator in Operation Motorman, a 2006 inquiry...said that his team were told not to interview journalists involved. The investigator...accused authorities of being too 'frightened' to tackle journalists."
context_section_description: UK Press Complaints Commission (PCC) Inquiry; (2007) Report concludes phone message tapping 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," done by a single journalist. Sir Christopher Meyer, then chairman of the PCC, "promised to investigate 'the entire newspaper and magazine industry of the UK to establish what is their practice' but opted not to question Andy Coulson on the grounds that he had resigned, and not to question any other journalist or editorial executive on the paper, apart from Myler, who necessarily had no direct knowledge of what had been going on before his arrival. The PCC's subsequent report failed to uncover any evidence of any phone hacking by any media organisation beyond that revealed at Goodman's trial." The Daily Mail alone made 985 requests, more than any other paper. After the conviction of Whittamore, the Information Commission, which is responsible for policing confidential databases, urged the Press Complaints Commission to issue "a clear public statement warning journalists and editors of the very real risks of committing criminal offences." Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act show that the PCC, which is funded by newspapers, resisted doing this and finally produced guidance which the Information Commission has publicly described as "disappointing".
  UK Press Complaints Commission Inquiry; (2009) "Concerned with whether it was misled by the News of the World during its 2007 investigation, and whether there is any evidence that phone message hacking has taken place since 2007." Its report concluded the PCC was not misled and that there is no evidence of ongoing phone hacking. This report and its conclusions were withdrawn on 6 July 2011.
  UK Solicitors Regulation Authority Inquiry; (22 July 2011)
caption: The Press Complaints Commission, located in Salisbury Square, London, conducted investigations into phone hacking in 2007 and 2009 and concluded there was no widespread abuse. The Commission "withdrew" this conclusion in 2011.
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