{"id":93452,"date":"2011-12-15T15:38:22","date_gmt":"2011-12-15T15:38:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.indexoncensorship.org\/?p=7108"},"modified":"2019-09-16T13:28:29","modified_gmt":"2019-09-16T12:28:29","slug":"myler-speaks-of-bombs-under-the-newsroom-floor-at-news-of-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/?p=93452","title":{"rendered":"Myler speaks of "bombs under the newsroom floor" at News of the World"},"content":{"rendered":"

The former editor of the News of the World revealed he was afraid there\u00a0“could have been bombs under newsroom floor” when he joined the tabloid after the 2006\u00a0phone hacking scandal.<\/p>\n

Colin Myler told the Leveson Inquiry<\/a>\u00a0today he “didn’t know\u00a0where they [the bombs] were\u00a0or when they were going to go off”.<\/p>\n

He\u00a0revealed he\u00a0“always\u00a0had some discomfort”\u00a0upon becoming editor in 2007, shortly after the paper’s\u00a0Royal reporter Clive Goodman\u00a0and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire had been jailed for hacking phones of members of the Royal family.<\/p>\n

“There was no appetite to go\u00a0back to that place,” Myler said.<\/p>\n

He\u00a0echoed Tom Crone’s\u00a0testimony that News International’s settlement with PFA boss\u00a0Gordon Taylor over a phone hacking claim did\u00a0not suggest a “culture of cover-up” at the company. Myler argued\u00a0it was\u00a0“not\u00a0wrong or\u00a0unreasonable” for a company to protect its reputation, noting that NI\u00a0was “dealing with a very difficult negotiation” and that\u00a0Taylor\u00a0“wanted\u00a0\u00a31 million or to\u00a0go to trial”.<\/p>\n

“I remember being told he wanted to humiliate the paper,” Myler said.<\/p>\n

He added that “nobody was very keen” on a trial following the Goodman-Mulcaire convictions.<\/p>\n

Referring to the 10\u00a0June 2008\u00a0meeting with Crone and News Corp CEO\u00a0James\u00a0Murdoch to settle the Taylor claim, Myler said he “didn’t recall” whether Crone had shown Murdoch\u00a0the front page of the “damning email” that implicated other reporters in phone hacking. But he added he had “no reason to disbelieve” Crone’s testimony.<\/p>\n

Myler conceded that the\u00a0email, also known as the ‘for Neville’ email (referring to former News of the World chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck) was evidence that the paper’s previous defence of hacking being limited to “one rogue reporter” was not sustainable.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile he said he did not recollect the 3 June 2008\u00a0opinion\u00a0of the company’s\u00a0leading counsel that there was a “culture of illegal infrmation access” at the tabloid. “That would hit you absolutely between the eyes,” Lord Justice Leveson responded.<\/p>\n

Myler reiterated his main recollection was the ‘for Neville’ email, which he said was “fatal” to the company’s case.<\/p>\n

Taylor was eventually paid over \u00a3700,000 by News International in 2008.<\/p>\n

Follow Index on Censorship\u2019s coverage of the Leveson Inquiry on Twitter \u2013\u00a0@IndexLeveson.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marta Cooper<\/strong>: Myler speaks of “bombs under the newsroom floor” at News of the World<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[3815],"tags":[14250,4969,1095,2930],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93452"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=93452"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93452\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":109291,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93452\/revisions\/109291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=93452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=93452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=93452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}