Phone hacking: email to James Murdoch was deleted

02-01-2012 • www.telegraph.co.uk

The chairman of News International was forwarded a chain of emails suggesting that hacking was not restricted to a single rogue reporter. They included one from Colin Myler, the editor of the News of the World at the time, after it emerged that a second journalist had sent an email with details of a hacked conversation. He warned Mr Murdoch that “it is as bad as we feared”.

Mr Murdoch claims he did not read the email in full and was unaware of the suggestion that hacking went beyond one “rogue reporter”.

Yesterday, however, it was disclosed that the email was deleted from his account by an IT worker at News International 11 days before Scotland Yard launched Operation Weeting.

Mr Myler’s copy of the message was also lost from the email server that held News International emails following a “hardware failure”. The deletions meant that the email did not form part of the initial evidence sent by News International to the Metropolitan Police.