Events leading to the Leveson Inquiry

By lilyhowarth

  • Rebekah Brooks editor of the news of the world

    began a campaign to name and shame alleged pedophiles

  • Milly Dowler disappears

    age 13, in weston upon thames

  • Rebekah Brooks becomes editor of the sun

  • News of the world publishes a story on Prince William’s knee injury

    prompts complaints by officials of the royal court about voicemails being intercepted. sparks a police complaint

  • Editor of news of the world Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire arrested

    allegedly hacked into mobile phones of the royal household

  • Clive Goodman jailed for 4 months and Glenn Mulcaire 6 months prison term

  • James Murdoch made chief executive of News corporations european and asian operations

  • Lawyers for news international review emails

    between mr Coulson and executives, no evidence that they were aware of Goodman’s actions

  • James Murdoch pays Gordon Taylor £700,000 to settle a phone hacking scandal

  • Rebekah Brooks CEO of news international

  • News of the world reporters illegally accessed messages on the phones of celebrities and politicians while Coulson was editor 2003-2007

    also paid more than 1 million to settle the case that threatened to reveal the journalists alleged involvement in phone hacking

  • Les Hinton (chief executive of dow jones) says any incident of phone hacking was linked to one case and found no new evidence

  • Press complaints commission says they have no new evidence on phone hacking other than Goodman and Mulcaire hacked messages and the paper knew what they were doing

  • House of commons culture, media and sports say it is inconceivable that managers of the paper didn’t know about the practice

  • Mr Coulson becomes head of govs media operation after David Cameron becomes pm

  • Mps ask parliaments standards watchdog to begin a new investigation into mr Coulson and the hacking allegations

    Ny times also publishes an article on Mr Coulson and that he knew his staff were carrying out illegal phone hacking

  • Mr Coulson interviewed as a witness by metropolitan police detectives

    he is not cautioned or arrested

  • The crown prosecution says no more charges will be brought over the news of the world phone hacking scandal

  • British police open new investigation into phone hacking scandal

    due to actress Sienna Miller, MP George Galloway and RMT union leader Bob Crow claiming their phones were hacked

  • news of the world sacks Ian Edmonson after an internal inquiry

  • Andy Coulson resigns as David Cameron’s communications chief

  • Met police release a statement saying they have identified more victims of hacking while reviewing the original Goodman and Mulcaire case

    they order Mulcaire to provide info on if other journalists were involved and he refuses due to fear of incriminating himself

  • BBCs panorama reveals NoW executive Alex Marunchak obtained emails belonging to an ex british army intelligence officer that had been hacked into by a private detective

    Marunchak denies any wrongdoing

  • ex NoW executive Alex Edmondson, chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck and senior journalist James Wetherup arrested on suspicion of conspiring to intercept mobile phone messages

    NoW publishes apologies online and in the print paper, says they will set up a justification scheme to deal with it effectively

  • alleged victims of phone hacking receive a High Court bid for a judicial review into the enquiry

    ex deputy pm Lord Prescott, Labour MP Chris Bryant, ex scotland yard commander Brian Paddick and journalist Brendan Montague

  • ex senior scotland yard officer Ali Dizaei threatens to sue if the claims of his phone being hacked in 2006 are true

  • News Group (owner of NoW) formally apologises to Sienna Miller and pays her £100,000 compensation

  • Lord Prescott (alleged victim of phone hacking) calls for gov to hold an independent public enquiry into scandal

  • Scotland Yard confirms it is investigating into allegations of comupter hacking at NoW

  • footballer Ryan Giggs launches action against NoW after claims that his phone was hacked

  • 300 emails handed to scotland yard by harbottle and lewis to show that mr Coulson had allegedly authorised payments to police officers

  • Andy Gray accepts £20,000 in compensation from NoW owners News Group

  • Police investigating scandal arrest a woman in West Yorkshire who is the ex partner of Greg Miskiw who worked at NoW until 2005

  • Levi Bellfield guilty of mudering Milly Dowler in 2002

  • police arrest royalist journalist Laura Elstone who works for the press association on suspicion of intercepting comms

    she is released on bail until october

  • news emerges: NoW targeted mobile phone of Sarah Payne mother which was given as a gift by Rebekah brooks after 8 year old sarah was abducted and killed in July 2000

  • Lawyer for Dowlers family says that Millys voicemails had been hacked and some deleted to mislead her family into thinking she was alive

  • Rupert Murdoch appoints NewsCorp executive Joel Klein to oversee investigations into the hacking allegations

  • NewsCorp announces closing of NoW

  • David Cameron launches 2 investigations into the scandal. Coulson arrested on suspicion of conspiring to intercept comms and suspicion of corruption, Goodman rearrested

  • Rupert Murdoch flys to London to handle the crisis, NoW publishes its last edition

  • allegations surface that journalists at several news corp papers have tried to target ex PM Gordon Brown

  • Neil Wallis (ex executive editor of NoW) arrested on suspicion of conspiring to intercept comms

  • Rebekah Brooks resigns

  • Rupert Murdoch advertises in several national newspapers to apologise for NoWs wrongdoings

  • David Beckham and Paul Mccartney added to list of people who’s phones were hacked

  • ex NoW executive Alex Marunchak employed for Met police

  • Met assistant commissioner John Yates resigns

  • ex NoW reporter Sean Hoare found dead at home

    he was first to allege that Coulson was aware of phone hacking scandal

  • sun website hacked to display a fake message of Rupert Murdoch death

  • the commons culture media and sport commissions hold a hearing

    with met police commissioner paul stephenson, ex assistant commissioner John Yates, james and rupert Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks

  • news international suspends legal funding for Glenn Mulcaire

  • James Murdoch may have misled MPs when he said he didn’t know more than one journalist involved in phone hacking

  • news emerges that andy Coulson was never fully vetted before working for David Cameron

    only had a basic security screening

  • surrey police reveal detective working on milly dowlers case in 2002 was dismissed the same year for leaking info

  • Glenn Mulcaire releases a statement saying he acted on the instruction of others

  • ex NoW editor Stuart Kuttner arrested and Johnnie marbles also jailed following foam pie attack on rupert murdoch during commons committee hesring

  • Greg Miskiw arrested

  • IPCC reports they are investigating a scotland yard officer leaking info on milly dowler case

  • MP tom watson announces parliament select committee will release info on phone hacking scandal including that James Murdoch knew about more then one journalist being involved

  • letter from Goodman to Nwes International executives also released where he states that Coulson supported reporters using phone hacking to source stories

  • James Murdoch admits paying Gordon taylor £700,000 hush money

  • News International lawyers admit to redacting the Goodman lettrr

  • BBC discloses that Coulson continued to receive payments from News International for several months after he began working for David Cameron

  • Mulcaire reveals to lawyer the names of staff who instructed him to carry out phone hacking

  • Tom Crone, Colin Myer, Jon Chapman and Daniel Cloke give evidence to the commons culture media and sport committee following accusations that James Murdoch misled MPs over the extent of his knowledge of the phone hacking scandal

  • police arrest 48 year old believed sun reporter Jamie Pyatt in connection with payments made to police

  • revealed that NoW hired a investigator to carry out undercover surveillance on Prince William while the newspaper was being investigated by police

  • detectives seized evidence that Neville Thurlbeck warned the paper that the phone hacking was widespread

  • Lord Leveson began his enquiry