When Nick Davies blew the whistle on the Murdoch mafiosi’s use of illegal voicemail interception to bring in and stand up stories for the late and not at all lamented Screws, his most taxing problem was getting the Metropolitan Police to admit that it was sitting on enough evidence to show that the practice had been on an industrial scale.
Yates of the Yard proved most reluctant to make the admission. The bad news today is that his successors appear to be of like mind: the evidence of criminality has been piling up, yet the cops do nothing. How different it is in the USA, where Raw Story has just told readers “Christian publishing company owned by News Corp found guilty of significant fraud and destroying evidence”. There is more.
“HarperCollins Christian Publishing company … was successfully sued by ePAC Technologies, whose CEO invented a way to quickly print and bind books.According to court documents, HarperCollins Christian attempted to buy ePAC, except it was all allegedly a ruse that lasted for years with no final acquisition”. Do go on.
“A jury in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee ultimately found in favor of ePAC. ‘The jury awarded EPAC Technologies, Inc., a leading high-technology manufacturer and printer, $12 million in punitive damages on top of more than $3 million in compensatory damages for fraud and breach of contract,’ the release says”.
John Witherow - commissioned criminal acts
But here in the UK, the Murdoch empire is keeping all its damages payments below the radar. It is paying out millions to make phone hacking claimants go away, thus keeping cases out of court. So it can claim that the Super Soaraway Currant Bun didn’t hack phones, even though there is a mountain of evidence that says it did (you can read Brian Cathcart’s take on the lack of Police interest HERE).
John Ford - blagged for the Sunday Times
And the cops keep schtum about it. Not a peep. No new investigation, no new arrests, no new convictions. No new investigation, either, into the activities of Mazher Mahmood, aka the Fake Sheikh, despite his having co-opted the Police on expeditions like the “Dirty bomb plot” and the Victorian Beckham kidnapping, both of which didn’t exist.
One might expect that Maz and his pals at the Murdoch press would at least have been done for wasting Police time, but no. Nor has there been any action following the revelations made by John Ford, who illegally blagged information for the Murdoch Sunday Times for several years. The Murdoch press paid for his legal defence (see HERE).
So there is no investigation into Will Lewis and his running of the News International Management Standards Committee, or into John Witherow, formerly editor of the Sunday Times and now promoted to the daily title, who commissioned so much illegality from John Ford, or into Rebekah Brooks, editor of the Sun at a time when phone hacking there was practised on an industrial scale. The evidence is there. Yet the cops do nothing.
Anyone might conclude that Robert Mark’s stated aim for what he wanted the Metropolitan Police to become - a force that caught more criminals than it employed - has still not been accomplished. There appears to be one law for the Murdochs, and one for the rest.
What is the Police for, if not to investigate crime? Perhaps we need Leveson 2 first.
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2 comments:
"There appears to be one law for the Murdochs, and one for the rest."
Not forgetting those fraudulently subverting electoral law.
Unfortunately the lovey dovey cosiness between The Met and Murdoch's minions (and other press outlets) means that they are compromised.
And the relationship between the politicians police and media means the system is stymied.
No surprise that Leveson 2 was cancelled or that the Daniel Morgan Murder inquiry has been kicked into very long grass.
Too many vested interests were owed to few media barons spreading their grace and favour around.
#The Old Murdoconian Mutual Aid Society (motto Quids Pro Quo Rus)
Anyone'd think the bizzies are as corrupt as Murdoch and his far right rent boys and girls.
And anyone'd be right.
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