Monday, July 11, 2011

Phone-hacking probe: Dowler family meeting Clegg - BBC News

11 July 2011 Last updated at 08:17 GMT


 Sally and Gemma Dowler meeting Nick Clegg Sally and Gemma Dowler will also meet David Cameron and Ed Miliband this week Relatives of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler are meeting Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg for talks about the phone-hacking scandal.



They will also meet Prime Minister David Cameron later this week.


Martin Moore, from the Media Standards Trust, said the Dowlers wanted the public inquiry into hacking to begin sooner than Mr Cameron has suggested.


The News of the World has closed in the wake of claims including that Milly's phone was hacked after her abduction.


The Media Standards Trust charity led the Hacked Off campaign for a public inquiry into phone-hacking by journalists.


Martin Moore, from the trust, told the BBC News website the body wanted to make sure the inquiry was conducted in the right way and in a reasonable time frame.


"Our particular concern is there have been a number of inquiries into this which haven't achieved very much," he said.


"There are also a number of vested interests here - the police, press and politicians - an awful lot of people for whom this will be a very uncomfortable and difficult inquiry, and we think it's important that the voices of the victims and the many other concerned members of the public aren't lost."

Mr Moore said the Inquiries Act 2005 had been set up specifically to prevent inquiries dragging on too long and to make it possible for them to be carried out in parallel with a police investigation in certain circumstances.


"The police investigation could go on for another two or three years so the inquiry might not even get going until 2014 or 2015 and we could be looking at 10 years before we get any answers," he added.


"That's too long - we want to get going as soon as possible."


Milly's mother Sally and her sister Gemma will be among a number of alleged victims of phone hacking talking part in the talks in Downing Street.


They will also meet Labour leader Ed Miliband to discuss the scandal.


Former Metropolitan Police deputy assistant commissioner Brian Paddick, who is also attending the talks, told the BBC the Dowler family had been told about the hacking of Milly's voicemail a week before the start of the trial of her killer Levi Bellfield.

Takeover 'pause'

Labour wants to halt News Corporation's bid to buy BSkyB pending police investigations into phone-hacking.

Milly Dowler Thirteen-year-old Milly was found murdered six months after her abduction in March 2002

The party plans to force a vote by MPs during an opposition day debate on Wednesday in an attempt to suspend the takeover bid by News Corp - of which News of the World (NoW) publisher News International is part.


A spokeswoman for Labour leader Ed Miliband said she believed there would be support from MPs of all parties for the takeover to be delayed and hoped the government would heed the calls for a "pause".


Any Commons vote on Wednesday will not be binding on the government but Lib Dem MPs and some Conservatives are expected to vote for a delay to the deal or for it be blocked altogether, which will increase pressure on Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt to act.


News International announced the closure of the NoW last week following the latest hacking allegations.


The 168-year-old paper published its final edition this weekend, in which it said it was "truly sorry".


Its editorial said: "There is no justification for this appalling wrongdoing. No justification for the pain caused to victims, nor for the deep stain it has left on a great history.


"Yet when this outrage has been atoned, we hope history will eventually judge us on all our years."


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