News Corporation have withdrawn their BSkyB bid amid the ‘Hackgate’ scandal.
The move follows further claims as the fallout into phone hacking continues. With news stories about the now defunct News of the World getting worse by the day and spreading to the other Murdoch papers, the media mogul now faces fresh accusations. It would seem News Corp has forgotten the first rule of journalism: Never become the story.
People on the News of the World payroll are said to have illegally accessed Gordon Brown’s son’s medical records and, after hacking Milly Dowler’s voicemail, deleted the messages when her mailbox was full – a move that made her family, and police, believe she was still alive.
News Corporation own 39% of BSkyB and announced last year that it intended to buy the remaining 61%.
Chase Carey, Deputy Chairman, President and Chief Operating Officer of News Corporation, commented: “We believed that the proposed acquisition of BSkyB by News Corporation would benefit both companies but it has become clear that it is too difficult to progress in this climate. News Corporation remains a committed long-term shareholder in BSkyB. We are proud of the success it has achieved and our contribution to it.”
BSKYB chief executive Jeremy Daroch added: “We are delivering on our clear, consistent strategy and are building a larger, more profitable business for the long term. We remain very confident in the broadly based growth opportunity for BSkyB as we continue to add new customers, sell more products, develop our leading position in content and innovation, and expand the contribution from our other businesses.”
The announcement comes as online petitions against News Corporation increase. Actor Hugh Grant got the ball rolling when he wore a wire and in a case of ‘the biter, bit’, taped a former News of the World journalist confessing that their paper “bugged everyone.” The piece was for an edition of the New Statesman which was being guest edited by his ex-girlfriend Jemima Khan.
Hugh Grant for Prime Minister….
I agree Patrick, you have brought up an excellent point. I was shocked to hear that. Who knows what damage has been done. We need a full public investigation and people have to take responsibility for their actions.
All good points Catherine, but I’d go further.
Levi Bellfield – who was eventually convicted of Milly Dowler’s murder – went on to kill two other girls (Marsha McDonnell and Amelie Delagrange), as well as attempting to kill another (Kate Sheedy). Bellfield remained undetected due to several strokes of luck (on his part), not least the secret interference in phone evidence used by the police by the News of the World.
While it can’t be stated beyond reasonable doubt that deletion of the messages on Milly’s mobile phone would have led to Bellfield’s capture, they *could* have aided the police to be more specific as to the precise time of her disappearance, which could in turn helped to round down suspects. This could therefore have implicated Bellfield (who had previous convictions for violent crimes against women) as being within a radius of the scene. In other words, but for the NOTW’s illegal phone hacking, two young girls could still be alive, and a further one spared a horrific ordeal.
This is of course conjecture, and I don’t state as certain that the NOTW’s phone hacking allowed Bellfield to escape and kill again. But given that these individuals were willing to compromise a police investigation into the murder of an 11-yr-old girl, can the later revelations – that they also hacked the phones of war widows, terrorist victims and politicians – for the sake of column inches be of any surprise at all?