British police reveal close rapport with phone-hacking tabloid

[Newsjock]

Source: Los Angeles Times

Journalists from the defunct British tabloid News of the World lied about their relationship with police as well as having hacked into cellphone messages in order to gather information about a missing teenager, a police document sent to Parliament revealed Monday.

The 16-page letter from Surrey police also revealed a close, almost collaborative, relationship between the press and police and offered no reason why Surrey authorities did not investigate the paper for illegal phone hacking in 2002 after the 13-year-old schoolgirl, Milly Dowler, went missing and was later found dead.

Instead, the police appear to have followed a line of inquiry back then that was suggested by misleading information from journalists based on the girl’s hacked phone messages.

The News of the World was a popular British tabloid owned by News Corp. media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who has been subjected to questioning on allegations of illegal phone hacking by a parliamentary committee.

Read more: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/01/british-police-reveal-close-rapport-with-phone-hacking-tabloid.html

[Canuckistanian]

1. What the police did was WORSE in this case

Sleazy publications have been around like, forever but police are supposed to INVESTIGATE breaches of the law, not tolerate them.

In this case, they even enabled the lawbreaking, both in the perpetration AND the prosecution.