A News International executive may have deleted ‘millions’of emails in an attempt to cover up the extent of phone-hacking at the News of the World.
The Guardian claimed that the archive dated back to January 2005 and revealed ‘daily contact between News of the World editors, reporters and outsiders, including private investigators”.
A reported published this afternoon said legal sources close to the Met’s phone-hack investigation Operation Weeting believed a senior executive ‘deleted ‘massive quantities’ of the archive on two separate occasions, leaving only a small fraction to be disclosed”.
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The report continued:
The allegation directly contradicts repeated claims from News International that it is co-operating fully with police in order to expose its history of illegal news-gathering. It is likely to be seen as evidence that the company could not pass a ‘fit and proper person’ test for its proposed purchase of BSkyB.
If the allegations are true, the executive would risk prosecution for perverting the course of justice.
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