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tv   Scandalous  BBC News  April 6, 2024 3:30am-4:01am BST

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they very nearly ruined my life. i have certainly seen how they have ruined the lives of others. it's really difficult for me to sit here and talk about this because the whole point of fighting these newspapers is because i was so keen to have my privacy. i feel a sense of duty to expose them, as they've exposed us. prince harry and sir eltonjohn have launched legal action against the publishers of the daily mail. action is being taken- against the sun newspaper. legal action against the mirror group over allegations of phone hacking. who did you hack? it would be quicker to say- who i didn't hack, wouldn't it? it'd be easier. celebrities, politicians... i was living in this sort of super highway
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of illicit information. it was exciting. you felt like a spy. as the years have gone by, - the story has grown and grown. it's 100 times worse - than the press admitted to. these are frankly eyewatering claims. bugging cars, listening to and recording live phone calls, paying police officials for sensitive information. i don't know to this day how many people have heard my deepest secrets, my desires. that phone hacking was not - practised by the mail on sunday or the daily mail. i didn't feel like i was working in some sort of underground illegal news gathering operation. i was working at the sun. what you saw was what you got. you have just about anybody who's ever appeared in a tabloid newspaper saying,
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"give me large wodges of cash, please." i think it's actually a legal scandal. it's not the money i'm after. it's to expose their guilt. it's justice. it's quite unbelievable that| individuals could go to such lengths at a time when a family are so grief—stricken. _ where is the morals around this? - how can they sleep at night? happy christmas, everybody! happy christmas! let's zoom in on clare! clare was working at _
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harvey nichols and she worked on a beauty counter there. she got to know michael pech, a slovakian security guard thati worked in harvey nichols. they dated for a period of three weeks. - she decided to end the relationship. i on the 13th of september, - he crept up behind my daughter, he raised a gun, i witnesses saw it... he raised a gun. he shot her at the back- of the head and as she fell, he shot her in the face. and then, he turned the gun on himself. | it was just before closing time last night when, in front of shoppers and staff, a man shot dead a woman serving
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on one of the ground floor cosmetics counters. it's believed the 22—year—old victim had been stalked by her killer after ending a relationship with him. it was five years after clare's murder, i got a phone call. from the metropolitan police. within hours of her murder, i clare's phone had been hacked and my phone had been hacked by the news of the world. - now, it would appear- that there were other papers.
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well, tricia, thank you for coming in to see my colleague, dan, and i. what we found is an article in the sun on the 15th of september, very shortly after the tragic murder of your daughter, that looks suspicious. it may not be easy for you to hear now and i'm sorry about that, but it says, "psycho on bail. "bloodbath at harvey nichols." and it quotes an unnamed friend of clare's. and that's a sign to us that that may have been material taken from phones, or to cover up the fact that information was taken from phones because it's unlikely, as i understand it, that the people who you knew who were clare's friends were talking randomly to the sun newspaper, within two days. we did think, how can these individuals, whoever those i individuals were, cos we didn't know, could talk to the press? i remember those feelings very, very well. _ what it says here is pech had bombarded her with phone calls and threatening text messages. we would infer that the sun was aware that phone calls had
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been made, either that was from itemised phone records that they'd obtained, or through voicemail interception. it was very similar to what happened at the news of the world, we say. and that's going to be the basis of your claim against the sun. hopefully, you'll get to the bottom of what happened here. thank you. thinking that clare was abused after her death, that's the bit. that really, really makes me angry. nothing was private. who knows? i have no idea and it's the not. knowing what they listened to, what they heard, and that will haunt me. .
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what we now call the phone hacking scandal includes all sorts of other alleged unlawful activities by the papers. we're talking about dozens of reporters and thousands and thousands of people who were targeted in this way, of which a fraction have actually come forward and brought claims, and we've been helping them bring those claims. i started life as a doctor, as a junior hospital doctor, and then, in public health, and then, i was elected to parliament in oxford and until about five years ago, i was the executive director of the hacked off campaign, which campaigned on behalf of victims, so i started to meet the people who had been the victims of the abuse and criminality by newspapers. we believe that the scale of this activity, as you can see by the amount of information we've gathered,
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which is now too big for this office... the scale of this is enormous. a lot of evidence to back up the claimants' allegation has been referred to in publicly available court documents. our earliest cases involved the mirror group. tabloid newspapers are very competitive beasts. - the late '90s into the 2000s, in fleet street, there - were two big groups. there was news international, which was the sun, _ the news of the world. and there was their directl rival, which was the mirror group, the daily mirror, the sunday mirror and l the sunday people. i edited the people. there was tremendous - competition, head—to—head, between the sun, on the one hand, that was the biggest i seller, and the daily mirror, l which was trying desperately to overtake and beat their rival. _ what sold newspapers
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was celebrity. - and the more salacious thati story was, the better it sold. if someone ever said to me, "what would you change in your life?", i would absolutely have never, ever, ever become a public figure. ever. success is great, but privacy is priceless. i lost my leg in 1993, crushed my pelvis, punctured my lung. suddenly, it was all over the media. "model overcomes adversity". i'd only been a model for, like, five minutes. and then, i had nonstop good press from �*93 to �*99. and then, it was as soon as i got in a relationship with my ex—husband, the hell started.
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all right, everyone? incoherent shouts as promised, paul and heather appeared - together today to just a little bit of press interest. the details are we're engaged. that's it — i was obviously naive. it was as if, "oh, it's ok for you to overcome adversity, "but there's no way you're going to marry an icon." they were just churning stories out that would feed into the public�*s gossipy nature. do you remember the first time that a personal piece of information was in the press, that you thought, "i don't know how they got that"? it was like 2001. me and my then partner got into an argument, so i left and i went to my girlfriends and stayed there and switched the phone off. and woke up in the morning and found out that all my voicemail messages had been listened to. and i thought, "that's weird. "why would it not be
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unheard messages?" didn't think anything more of it, got in the car, drove around. then i got a call from neil wallis, from the people. he said, "we've got this story that you have had an argument," and i was like, "what? !" he said, "well, yeah. "we got told by a guy in a restaurant," and i said, "well, no, i was at my friend's last night "and i thought it was funny that my messages had been "listened to, so you've hacked me." and he said... and that was something we hadn't even thought of, or knew of, in those days. and he said, "no, no, no." and i said, "if you run that story, "then i'm coming after you legally." i'd known and worked very well with heather for years. - i remember it was the most bizarre conversation. - and i had not a clue - what she was talking about. so, i spoke to...i think- the news editor who brought it to me, who'd been sold it by a freelance. - no mention there, too, j of how he'd obtained it. i guess the question is that — did you hack heather mills'...
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no. - ..phone? no. absolutely did not hack heather mills's phone. | had no idea that anybody had hacked her phone. i and did you commission anyone to do that? absolutely not. he then contacted me and said, "i'm not running that article, just to let you know." and that's when i went, ok. i'm being followed or hacked or something and that's when i started to become paranoid and i actually went to government back then and theyjust poo—pooed me and said, "she's completely nuts. "don't be so ridiculous." conventionally, a good reporter is energetic and persistent and intelligent to persuade strangers to cooperate, but that's skilful and
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difficult and time consuming. and so, voicemail hacking is a brilliant shortcut. why bother turning up on the doorstep and trying to persuade the famous actress to tell you her secrets when you can get straight into her voicemail in two minutes and you've got the story? good afternoon. police are continuing - to question a seniorjournalist from the news of the world over claims that aides - to the royal family had their mobile phones hacked into. i the paper's royal editor is one of two men being held today. i phone hacking first came to the public�*s attention in 2006 when a news of the world journalist and a private investigator, glenn mulcaire, were arrested for listening to the voicemails of members of the royal household. years later, the guardian revealed that hundreds of other people had been hacked. we published a whole series of stories over a two—year period, which then came to a head injuly 2011,
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when we ran this story about how the news of the world had hacked into the voicemail of the missing schoolgirl, milly dowler. that finally pushed the whole thing over the edge. rupert murdoch, who runs britain's biggest media company, appeared before mps to answer questions about the phone hacking scandal. i would just like to say one sentence. | this is the most - humble day of my life. thank you. the resulting scandal caused the news of the world to close down. i feel so appalled - by what has happened. murder victims, terrorist| victims, who've had their phones hacked, - is quite disgraceful. so, the government reacted by setting up the leveson inquiry. there were the most powerful people in the uk, told to sit in front of a microphone, while the world watched online, and talk about what really goes on in their newsrooms. newspaper executives denied any knowledge of illegal activity. we have only seen
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unsubstantiated allegations and i have seen no evidence to show me that phone hacking has ever taken place at trinity mirror. did you see this sort of thing going on, mr morgan? - no. are you sure about that? 100%. at the end of the day, nothing really changed. i think from the point of view of the public perception, the phone hacking saga all ended at some unspecified point after the leveson inquiry. in reality, it wasn't over because lawyers on behalf of all sorts of victims were suing through the courts and uncovering all sorts of new evidence. across the next three years, mirror group repeatedly refused to make any admission of guilt over hacking. tonight, trinity mirror have repeated the statement it has made many times over the last year, that itsjournalists worked within the law and within the press complaints code of conduct. all that changed, partly due to one journalist.
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he was arrested for hacking at the news of the world, but told police that he had been taught to hack whilst working at the sunday mirror. despite all the documentary evidence we have, the single most important thing are witnesses and whistle—blowers in particular. by whistle—blowers, i mean journalists who are willing to come forward to give evidence that they hacked phones and it's very rare for that to happen. that's why dan evans is so important because he has come forward and admitted to doing this kind of stuff and doing it regularly. it's incredibly important evidence for the claimants. at the height of it, _
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i was hacking 100, 150 people a day, maybe. people like kate moss, - daniel craig, david blunkett, who was the home secretary at the time, lots of celebrities, i sports people, sometimes their nearest and dearest, j sometimes their mistresses. you know, it was a very powerful feeling. - it was... it gave you a visceral thrill at times to know stuff- which nobody else did. here we go. i specifically remember being told to look into an actress i called shobna gulati. in the early 20005, i'd just embarked on my television career. i had done dinnerladies and i got a job on the biggest soap opera in the world, coronation street. you listen to me. you're going to regret the day that you ever mess with me and my family!
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now, you are, in real life, shobna, a single mum. i have my mum and my brother and my sister—in—law who really, really support me very much throughout this venture of mine. i was a really shy girl. istillam. what i was doing was doing my job, providing for my son. have you not got any bacon? have i not got any, or have i got any? i'd never thought of it as like, "i'm going to be famous." you know, baby, i love you. i'm only in this mess because of your "love". there were stories that were in the press about me when i was on coronation street. mostly to do with my love life, because sunita had a terrible love life. but then, there was a lot more to do with me personally than sunita. i couldn't figure out how the paparazzi knew
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where i was going in manchester. or they couldn't just happen to be there. i could never work that out. how did they know that i'd be at the station to pick up my boyfriend, who was coming in from london? i heard him leaving a message for her on her voicemail. - "are you going to meet me at the train station?" - bingo. put photographers on it, with some long lenses, i at both ends of the train- journey and you've got photos and bob's your uncle, . it's a page in the paper. she was targeted specifically because of her ethnicity- and because of her gender, because she was regarded. as being, you know, somebodyj who would appeal to both male and female readers, - who ticked an important box, in terms of the demographic reach of the paper. - and i was the tool that was used to steal her secrets, i
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put them on the front page of the paper. i they'd chase down any boyfriend i was seeing at the time and, you know, i'm in my 30s, so i'm out there, trying to find the one, like every other woman in her 30s. we became fodder. whoever i was seeing became press fodder. we'd have rows about my partners being doorstepped. you know, i just... it would create all these questions in your head. and then, you would to and fro with that boyfriend, thinking it was something to do with them and obviously, you know, it would create a problem. so, when people read these stories in the newspapers, they would see the article
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and they would see "a friend said" or "a pal said" and the information was attributed to that unnamed person and they assumed, understandably, that it was a member of theirfamily, or a close friend, who was selling that information to the newspaper. and it destroyed relationships, you know, lifelong friendships were blown apart and families were destroyed because of this. it was incredibly corrosive and damaging for these people and all the time, they didn't know that it was newspaper journalists, or private investigators, hacking their phone and obtaining that information. so, the damage it caused was immeasurable. i was just trying to figure out my way in life, to find a partner, maybe have some more children. you know... that hasn't happened. that hasn't happened because i've missed those years. i've missed those years because it was all very tumultuous. filled with paranoia and anxiety and mistrust and you can't form
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relationships like that. and it has destroyed... it has destroyed a whole sort of two decades of my life, where i could possibly have found something, but i never have. i didn't invent this. and it certainly wasn't i the paper's first rodeo, when it came to phone hacking, when they instructed me in howj to do it. my head of me is sat there and said, "i'ml going to use this one l person to demonstrate on "because he never. picks up his phone, ok? "it's guaranteed to go - through to his voicemail." i'm like, "ok, shoot. "who is it? " he said, "well, it's a guy called alan yentob." - i'm like, "i've never heard of alan yentob before." . he was a bigwig at the bbc. and the head of news kind of... ba—ba—ba—ba—ba.
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gets himself into alan's system and starts playing various - messages for me and thenj showing me how to shuffle through them, how to make sure i didn't delete - any by accident. there was no alert to... to the target person. while at the mirror, dan evans hacked hundreds of victims. they had to live with the consequences for years. his confession only came to the public�*s attention when he was charged for phone hacking. i had no way to regain - the ability to look my children in the eye, unless ll did the unthinkable, which was to breach - the omerta of fleet street. speak the truth. i got a message from a lawyer and he said, "alan, the metropolitan police want to talk to you "because they believe you've been hacked." and i said, "hacked? what, me? hacked?" and they informed me that somebody had confessed,
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i think it was dan evans, that they had been hacking my phone and over a very long period of time. a group of eight people who suspected that they were victims took the fight to the civil court. based on dan evans' testimony and other evidence that emerged, thejudge in the case declared that there was widespread phone hacking at mirror group newspapers. this company is now going to face a huge bill because there are potentially hundreds of other claims to follow these eight. there are so many people whose phones have been hacked. what i did with the mirror group is only the tip
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of the iceberg. hello. storm kathleen will dominate our weather
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through this weekend. a deep area of low pressure passing well to the west of the uk, but close enough to bring gales in northern and western parts. one other consequence, though — some very warm air being drawn up from the south. here's how the storm developed during friday. a strong and powerfuljet stream really energising this area of low pressure, this curl of cloud developing here. wherever you see a weather system spinning up into a curl like this, well, it shows that it really will mean business. this deep low passing to the west of ireland, lots of isobars squeezing together. so some very strong winds, but also some very warm air. northern scotland, far warmer than it has been over recent days. parts of eastern england could get to 21 or 22 degrees. some rain to start off across the northern half of scotland — heavy rain at that. it will pull away northwards, and then essentially it is a sunshine and showers day. some of those showers could be on the heavy side, but it is going to be windy for all, particularly around these western coast.
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gusts of 50, 60, 70 mph in exposed spots, so that could cause some disruption, certainly some very rough seas as well. but with those winds coming from the south, yes, it is going to be warm, with temperatures peaking at 21 or maybe 22 degrees in eastern england. now, through saturday evening, this weak cold front will exit the east of england. so that will leave some slightly fresher air into the early hours of sunday morning. still windy, still with quite a few showers. not as mild to start sunday morning, but still very mild for an april morning. and then into sunday, well, it's another sunshine and showers day. the showers likely to join together into bands. so some places could see quite a few of those heavy and possibly thundery showers. windy again, strongest winds this time in the north west of scotland. gales or severe gales are likely. still warm, but not as warm. temperatures north to south between ten and 16 or 17 degrees.
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but then as we head into the start of the new week, we are watching this area of low pressure. now, there's still a bit of uncertainty about this, but this could bring another bout of wet and very windy weather to southern parts of the uk as we head through monday and into tuesday. we'll keep you posted on that one. whichever way you slice it, an unsettled week of weather lies ahead. that's all for me. bye for now.
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live from washington, this is bbc news. two senior israeli military officers have been sacked after seven aid workers were killed in missile strikes in gaza. an earthquake rattles new york and parts of the northeastern us. plus, president biden tours the the site of a collapsed bridge in baltimore, as the body of a third victim is recovered.
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hello, i'm carl nasman. the israeli military fired two senior officers on friday, after reviewing monday's airstrike on an aid convoy in gaza that killed seven humantiarn workers. the idf said the airstrikes came after a series of "grave mistakes". it also gave an account of how and why it carried out the attack. it said in part: that the strike should not have happened and expressed its deep sorrow for the incident. it says those who approved the strike were convinced they were targeting hamas operatives. the strikes on the three vehicles were carried out in serious violation of standard operation procedure and that the brigade chief of staff, an officer with the rank of colonel in reserve, and the brigade fire support commander, with the rank of major, have been dismissed from their positions. our middle east correspondent lucy williamson has more on the fallout from ashdod, israel. israel says hamas gunmen often pose as aid workers. not this time.

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