Information about the Leveson Inquiry

2. The Leveson Inquiry is a public inquiry into the culture, practices and ethics of
the British Press, chaired by Lord Justice Leveson, who was appointed in July
2011 after the News International Phone Hacking Scandal. The Leveson Inquiry
was split into two parts. On the 14th September 2011, press release stated Part
1 of the Leveson Inquiry would be addressing: “the culture, practices and ethics
of the press, including contacts between the press and politicians and the press
and the police; it is to consider the extent to which the current regulatory
regime has failed and whether there has been a failure to act upon any previous
warnings about media misconduct." Part 2 of the Leveson Inquiry would be
addressing: "the extent of unlawful or improper conduct within News
International, other media organisations or other organisations. It will also
consider the extent to which any relevant police force investigated allegations
relating to News International, and whether the police received corrupt
payments or were otherwise complicit in misconduct." According to
reports, Part 2 of the investigation will not be able to commence until the
current police investigations and any other following criminal proceedings have
been completed.

3. The News International phone hacking scandal, which was dubbed various
names such ‘Rupertgate’ and ‘Murdochgate’ after allegations were made
against magnate Rupert Murdoch and his companies, (including News of the
World) that he and his companies had been regularly hacking the phones of
various celebrities such as Andy Gray, members of royalty and public citizens.
The results from investigations conducted between 2005-2007 showed that
the paper’s phone hacking activities mainly targeted celebrities, politicians
and members of the British Royal Family. In July 2011, it was uncovered that
victims of the paper’s phone hacking included murdered schoolgirl Milly
Dowler, relatives of deceased British Soldiers and the victims of the 7/7
London bombings.

4. Rupert Murdoch

5. On July 20th 2011, David Cameron announced a panel of six people who have been
working with the judge on the enquiry. Those on the panel were:
• Sir David Bell, former chairman of the ‘Financial Times’
• Shami Chakrabarti, director of ‘Liberty’
• Lord Currie, former ‘Ofcom’ director
• Elinor Goodmen, former political editor of ‘Channel Four News’
• George Jones, former political editor of ‘The Daily Telegraph’
• Sir Paul Scott-Lee QPM, former Chief Constable of ‘West Midlands Police’
The Leveson Inquiry was approached and broken down into four modules:
• Module 1: The relationship between the press and the public, and looks at phone-
hacking and other potentially illegal behaviour.
• Module 2: The relationships between the press and the police and the extent to
which that has operated in the public interest.
• Module 3: The relationship between press and politicians.
• Module 4: Recommendations for a more effective policy and regulation that
supports the integrity and freedom of the press while encouraging the highest
ethical standards.

6. The end of News of the World
On the 7th July 2011, James Murdoch announced that the News of the World would
publish its last ever edition of the newspaper after 168 years in print, on July 10th
2011. These decisions resulted in the loss of 200 jobs. James Murdoch also stated
that the paper was “sullied by behaviour that was wrong” and said that “if recent
allegations are true, it was inhuman and has no place in our company”. Reports from
other executives of the company state that the phone hacking was more widespread
than they had been lead to believe, and are now cooperating with investigations into
the allegations.

8. As a result of the phone hacking scandal, the Metropolitan Police are
continuing to look into phone hacking by all UK newspapers. Cases
against UK newspapers are more than likely to be taken to the UK’s
civil courts. Gaby Hinsliff, the source who wrote this statement in a
former article and former Political Editor at the national Sunday
paper, The Observer, predicted that ‘the police investigation could be
actually be of more lasting importance than any findings from the
Leveson Inquiry.’ The Leveson Report also suggests that important
exemptions in the Data Protection Act for journalists pursuing stories
in the public interest should be scrapped. In response to
this, Information Commissioner, Christopher Graham stated that there
were “legitimate concerns” over the impact of Lord Justice Leveson’s
recommendations could have on journalism. He also warned that his
recommendations would make the Information Commissioner a
"mainstream statutory regulator", a label which he did not want to
associated with.