Phone-hacking scandal deepens yet again

“Named and shamed: News of the World targeted Sara Payne,” headlines the Independent, in the wake of “a sinister new twist” in the UK’s ongoing phone-hacking scandal. According to the London daily, police currently investigating the phone-hacking culture at press baron Rupert Murdoch’s News International “have warned the mother of Sarah Payne that a phone given to her by the News of the World may have been targeted by a detective working for the paper. Sara Payne was given the phone shortly after her eight-year-old daughter, Sarah, was abducted and murdered in July 2000.”

The case was a highly emotive one in the United Kingdom. In the wake of the murder, the News of the World, along with Sarah Payne’s mother, campaigned to enact “Sarah’s law”. “Her campaign to give parents the right to know if paedophiles were living in their area was championed by the NOTW, in particular by its former editor Rebekah Brooks.” At the same time, the News of the World controversially “named and shamed” alleged pedophiles, publishing their names and photographs on its front page. The Independent front page carries a photo of Payne’s mother side-by-side with Brooks. On 15 July Brooks resigned as chief executive of News International and was arrested and interviewed by police.