Glenn Mulcaire’s notebooks have been making waves today as the phone hacking inquiry rumbles on. Twenty-eight News International employees are named in a notebook. The notebook also has a references to The Sun and Daily Mirror, which suggest that phone hacking may have happened at other papers.
Robert Jay QC, counsel to the inquiry, said that senior executives had either condoned hacking or did not do the proper checks. In either case there was ‘room for a Nelsonian blind eye’ towards the ‘thriving cottage industry’.
Some of the notes that corresponded to News of the World employees reveals that they made 1,453 separate requests for information from Mulcaire.
The private detective also wrote ‘The Sun’ and a name relating to the Daily Mirror in his notebooks.
Mulcaire was imprisoned with the News of the World’s former royal editor Clive Goodman in January 2007 after they admitted intercepting voicemail messages left on phones belonging to members of the royal family.
The inquiry heard that the investigator’s notes relating to the royal aides are marked ‘Clive’, ‘private’ and with the name of ‘A’, who cannot be named for fear of prejudicing the ongoing police investigation into phone hacking.
Robert Jay QC said: ‘One possible inference to be drawn is that ”A” was working with or for Goodman, and he or she may have instructed Mulcaire to carry out an interception.
‘It might be argued that ”A” could have been acting independently of Goodman, but that would not make much sense since Goodman was the royal editor.’
Mr Jay added: ‘Either News International senior management knew what was going on at the time and therefore, at the very least, condoned this illegal activity.
‘Or they didn’t and News International’s systems failed to the extent that there was failure in supervision, failure of oversight with possible failures of training and corporate ethos and checking of expenses claims.
‘And there’s room for a Nelsonian blind eye. In either version, we have clear evidence of a generic, systematic or cultural problem.
He added: ‘I suggest that it would not be unfair to comment that it was at the very least a thriving cottage industry.’
Mulcaire also hacked the phones of publicist Max Clifford, football agent Sky Andrew, chairman of the Professional Footballers Association Gordon Taylor, MP Simon Hughes and supermodel Elle Macpherson.
In total about 28 legible corner names are legible in the 11,000 pages of notes that police seized from Mulcaire, which relate to a total of 2,266 taskings and the names of 5,795 potential victims, the inquiry heard.
Lord Justice Leveson this morning opened the inquiry into media standards that was set up after the News of the World phone hacking scandal.
He is examining the ‘culture, practices and ethics of the press’.
The Court of Appeal judge was watched by Bob Dowler, the father of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler. Her phone was hacked by the News of the World.