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July 2, 2014

Hack Attack versus Beyond Contempt…Peter Jukes and Nick Davies publish hacking scandal books this month

By Dominic Ponsford

The first two books dealing with the hacking scandal, and covering the hacking trial, are to come out at the end of this month.

They are Hack Attack, by Guardian journalist Nick Davies, and Beyond Contempt, by Peter Jukes – who covered every day of the hacking trial on Twitter.

The Davies book is the result of a six-year investigation into phone-hacking at the News of the World and the subsequent cover-up.

Davies first reported in July 2009 that thousands of phones has been hacked by News of the World journalists and that £1m had been paid out by News International to buy the silence of phone-hacking targets.

His work culminated two years later with the revelation that the News of the World had listened to the voicemail messages of missing schoolgirl Milly Dowler.

Hack Attack: How the Truth Caught up with Rupert Murdoch will be published by Chatto and Windus on 31 July.

The publisher said: “Based on dozens of exclusive interviews with private investigators, journalists, politicians, police officers and Murdoch executives, Hack Attack is the story of what happened when truth caught up with power.

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“It is a gripping account of an investigation, of how the quest unfolded, and is full of detail that we haven’t read before.  But, more than that, it’s a brave and meticulously researched portrait of power and its abuses.  Definitive, thrilling, ambitious – there will be no other book like it, and only Nick Davies could tell it quite like this.”

Beyond Contempt: The Inside Story of the Hacking Trial will be released in e-book format at the end of the month, with a paperback to follow.

After paying his way via crowdfunding, Jukes covered every moment of the hacking trial on Twitter.

He said: “Now that the verdicts are in, this book will go beyond the restrictions imposed on the media by the Contempt of Court Act, hence its title.

“If you want to know how Rebekah Brooks came to be acquitted and Andy Coulson convicted, this is the book for you.”

Martin Hickman, founder of Canbury Press, the book’s publisher, said: “The Murdoch press has already started to kick back against the trial, using a bogus £100m figure to claim it was a waste of money.

“As the judge acknowledged, the case was important for British justice – and there was a lot more going on than the public was told.”

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