BBC business editor Robert Peston has been told by a source at News International that the sacking of former assistant editor Ian Edmondson marks a “new phase” for the phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World.
The source tells Peston: “They want to know everything and root out anyone who obtained information improperly. It could get pretty messy.”
More evidence of this “new phase” could be suggested by the fact that The Sun today wrote about phone-hacking allegations at its sister title for the first time.
News International proprietor Rupert Murdoch is currently in London, and according to Dan Sabbagh at the Guardian – he has called off plans to visit the Davos World Economic Forum in order to ‘roll his sleeves up’ at Wapping.
Talking to MPs in 2009, head of legal at the News of the World Tom Crone and editor Colin Myler said they could find no evidence that an staffers at the paper beyond jaled royals editor Clive Goodman were involved in illegal mobile phone voicemail hacking. And they insisted that a thorough internal investigation had already taken place.
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