Thursday 21 March 2024

Harry Lawsuit NAMES Murdoch, CEO

At first, we were told that phone hacking was the work of “one rogue reporter”, then, after it was revealed to have happened on an industrial scale, that our free and fearless press had cleaned up its act and no longer hacked phones, or used the services of those who practiced The Dark Arts. But these claims, too, were untrue. We were also told that editors didn’t know.


And nor did bosses. But this farrago was soon exposed, with hacking, blagging, improper use of data, improper access to Police and medical records, other forms of surveillance, burglary, bribery and bugging carrying on through and beyond the time of the Leveson Inquiry, indeed, to this day. It was, and remains, a Wild West Show carrying the highest of risks.

Not least the risk that some of those targeted by the press might have sufficient resources to take said press to the cleaners, and that sufficient numbers of those who know what was going on move from poacher to gamekeeper, bringing expert knowledge to the service of those taking legal action. All of this, yesterday, came together at the High Court.

As so often, press reports are restricted to the Guardian and Press Gazette, plus Byline Times from the new and independent media. So what’s PG got to report? “The publisher of the defunct News of the World ‘gave false evidence’ to police about how the hard drive of its then-chief executive Rebekah Brooks went missing as it faced allegations of phone hacking, the High Court has been told”. And that’s just for starters. Who’s bringing the lawsuit?

News Group Newspapers (NGN) is being sued by Prince Harry and several other individuals over allegations of unlawful information-gathering, including the use of private investigators”. Why do they all hate Haz so much? Do you think that the lawsuits and press hatred are in some way connected?

Do go on. “Lawyers for the individuals have claimed that a computer hard drive belonging to Rebekah Brooks, NGN’s former chief executive now in the same role at News UK, went missing in May 2011 and that NGN gave false evidence to the police to ‘explain away’ its disappearance”. Hmmm.


In his written arguments, David Sherborne, representing Harry and the other people bringing claims, said it had already been alleged that the hard drive of Brooks’ computer was ‘sequestered and/or destroyed deliberately in order to conceal her and others’ knowledge of wrongdoing at NGN’”. Also, “The hearing was told there are 45 separate claims against NGN, including from Harry, film-maker Guy Ritchie, actor Hugh Grant, and Baroness Lawrence”.

It was the Byline Investigates feed that let us know just how tasty it was getting: “Prince Harry's lawyer has just referred to a document called the 'PI Annex' which is long list of private investigators - the vast majority allegedly unlawful - who were tasked by Rupert Murdoch's papers”.

Then, rather a lot of people were named. “The current Editor of The Sun Victoria Newton has just been named in Prince Harry's High Court case for allegedly unlawful information gathering” … “The current CEO of News UK Rebekah Brooks has just been named in court for alleged unlawful information gathering and covering it up”. Anyone else?

Rupert Murdoch - and a long list of his executives - have been named for allegedly being 'dishonest' - an allegation which his company objects to” … “[Will] Lewis - who serves as the publisher and chief executive officer of The Washington Post - has just been named in court for allegedly covering up phone hacking for his former employer Rupert Murdoch”. Well, well.

There was more. “The News International execs were seeking approval from Rupert Murdoch, according to Sherborne, to pursue concealment and destruction of evidence and a deliberate strategy to thwart the police investigation … David Sherborne, for the claimants, has told the court that News International bosses allegedly set-out to disrupt MPs who were calling for an investigation into the phone hacking scandal”. The hearing continues.

And don’t forget, the Mail will be next. Why d’you think they hate Harry, again?


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27 comments:

  1. If there is any justice in Britain, Murdoch, Rothermere, MacFilth, Brooks, Dacre, Newton, Kuentssberg, Robinson, Neil, Bruce, Frei, Hilsum and all the other media gobshites and seedy underlings will do long stretches in jail for deliberate lies and far right propaganda.

    Lest we forget, these are the same gutless shithouses who jeered at the quarter of our citizens in inflicted poverty, at the Hillsborough families, and who peddle Islamophobia and suburban paranoid flag-shagging.

    They won't of course because Britain has turned into the worst kind of far right reactionary shithole of urfascist thievery. It will stay that way until honesty becomes a majority in British culture. But don't hold your breath. Until then suck it up.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Burlington Bertie from Bow21 March 2024 at 18:50


    Thanks for the advice, Anonymous, you silver-tongued devil.

    Ever thought of a job with the British Tourist Authority 'Helping the travel industry showcase the best of Britain'? Sounds like just the ticket!

    ReplyDelete
  3. You can bet it would be a different press if the marriage partner had been a blond, blue eyed Aryan straight from Roedean. That's the way the Dacre-type thugs work.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'm with Anonymous.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Meanwhile, the Quiff Quisling is seriously concerned about design of a millimetres sized back collar logo on a football shirt. Following up his "interview" while wearing horn rimmed specs and tearfully recounting a childhood short of "emotional space".

    Tremendous stuff from the red tory Barbie PR Agency.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Missing absconding hard drives are such a major IT problem, that one takes a chance a machine will boot after depressing the ON button.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Burlington Bertie from Bow22 March 2024 at 12:55


    We're *all* with Anonymous, Sam. Because, as he reminds us, there's simply no escape from this far right shithole of urfascist thievery peopled by suburban paranoid flag-shaggers, seedy underlings and gobshites, quiffed Quisling social fascists, treacherous time-serving M25-dwelling spivs, wide boys and gangsters, cosh-wielding Brighton razor gangs, jellied eel scoffers, Islamaphobic billionaire Tory donors, coke-addled City traders and sharp-suited southern sourdough-munchers.

    I'm simply suggesting that the picture he paints could make the UK an attractive proposition to the international disaster-tourism community and that, given his awy with the demotic, Anonymous could offer his services to the British Tourist Authority and help attract some much-needed foreign currency to this septic isle in its hour of need.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "The international disaster-tourism community"

      A perfect description of a Zionist-without-qualification racist "Labour" Party.

      Delete
  8. Talk about paranoid flag-shagging..... and up pops the M25 Quisling.

    Gosh, what a surprise.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Burlington Bertie from Bow22 March 2024 at 14:48


    'way'

    ReplyDelete
  10. Years ago Tony Benn warned:

    “If the Labour Party could be bullied or persuaded to denounce its Marxists, the media would demand next that it expelled all its Socialists and reunited the remaining Labour Party with the SDP to form a harmless alternative to the Conservatives.”

    The SDP evaporated into the third Tory faction. The Labour Party no longer exists for working class defence, it is purely to further the interests of a small gang of third rate obedient clerks.

    Naturally all of this develops into media slob attacks on anybody who stands apart from it or actively opposes it. And god help you if you also have brown skin like Meghan Markle. Starmer, like all of his type, will flee from denouncing the culprits, anything to keep his place in the Cringe.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Burlington Binky
    Whose phrases go hinky
    Each time he is rogered on line
    His words are old offal
    Which curdle in waffle
    To show he is pickled in brine

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "Pluck out the beam in thine own eye". And no I'm not a bible enthusiast crypto fascist.
      And BTW, just because you consider you've emerged triumphant from your exchanges here doesn't actually mean you have. Beyond parody I sometimes wonder if you're a spoof channeling the spirit of Rick from the young ones.

      Delete
    2. A secondary prop
      Told when to hop
      Asks 'How high am I ordered to go?'
      Steps in party line
      That's free of a spine
      Coz that's all their party can show

      Delete
    3. I do love it when Bertie forgets to log his name. Makes it funnier.

      Delete
    4. Completely misunderstanding what’s going on as ever, Mr Hayhurst. I’d possibly be flattered by your obsessive attention if you ever showed any sign or indication of awareness of your pathological lack of a sense of humour or ability to follow the simplest of messages. And are you also responsible for the infantile little sub-Thribbisms which seem to coincide with your late night sniping?
      They’re about your level and reveal a similar personal obsessiveness.
      Do tell.

      Delete
    5. As you're not a university man Bertie, I shall refer you to a comic I like: Garfield.

      There is a lovely edit where they remove Garfield's thiught bubbles and it just looks like John is going mad.

      When you forget to add your name, it reminds me of that. A man confronted by an intelligence he doesn't actually have.

      Must admit, I felt the same way when I met Dame Penelope Wilton.

      Delete
  12. I'm starting to like the cut of the Hewitt boy's jib.

    ReplyDelete
  13. A COCKNEE TAXI DRIVER RITES23 March 2024 at 12:08

    'Ere, wots orl vis abaht dem two wrong uns in America?

    Evryone noze der a pairer commies aht ter DESTROY ar wanderful royl famlee (gawd bless king Charles an fewtcha king Willyum) wot brings in orl dem turrists. Yiv onny gotta look at iz red er...an HER, well yiv onny gotta look at HER t'no sheez a wrong un, no warrameen.

    I ad dat Mykl Kyne in the backer me cab once. Proper pytreeut geezer ee woz. Ee keeps iz eye on dem wrong uns in Callyfornyeh.

    Gawd bless the princess o Wyles.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Wait for it.........

    ReplyDelete
  15. Burlington Bertie from Bow23 March 2024 at 23:05


    I said 'wait for it....' but it wasn't really worth waiting for, was it?

    God alone knows what 'forget to add your name means' and why you should find it interesting even assuming it actually occurred. When I finally make it occur (intentionally, as a joke, out of sympathy for the emptiness of your life and in an attempt to give you the amusement you claim it affords you) you don't even notice my kindness, just as you don't seem to get the point of anything anyone ever posts on here.

    Whatever insecurities prompt you to endlessly trumpet some claimed educational achievement and apparent writing triumphs can only be guessed at; but they're made even more pitiful by your clear need to shore up your own fragile self-worth by attempting, clumsily, to put other people down.

    As I recall, your obsession with me began when I objected to the patronising tone and epic point-missing of a post of yours a long time ago; you should surely by now have got over it. Your obsessive behaviour is unhealthy, Mark.

    Away, now, for all our sakes, and stalk somebody else, man.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Girls, girls....can't Bertie and Mark get a room elsewhere and scratch each other's eyes out there.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Burlington Bertie from Bow24 March 2024 at 19:15


    I feel your pain, Anonymous.

    (But be careful, you'll be piously informed that no pain can ever excuse casual sexism).

    ReplyDelete
  18. Call me Mark Twain but I feel like BB is the title character from "The Old man and the Sea".

    Little joke there for you all.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ed I reckon you're wrong there. Mark is the 'old man' and Bertie is the fish he caught. We know what happened to the fish. But I wouldn't want to be hemming you in the way there.

      Yes I'll get me coat.

      Delete
  19. Anon @ 14:29, don't know about a room, but in a few years they'll probably be pelting each other with stale orange peel while shouting at passing buses and pigeons.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Burlington Bertie from Bow24 March 2024 at 22:36


    Absolutely no one would confuse you with Mark Twain, Mr Balls, but thanks for reminding us who the 'pious informer'regularly is.


    ReplyDelete