List of investigations, resignations, suspensions, and dismissals in conjunction with the news media phone hacking scandal
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This List of investigations, resignations, suspensions, and dismissals in conjunction with the news media phone hacking scandal is a chronological listing of investigations, actual and considered, into illegal acquisition of confidential information or cover-up by employees or other agents of news media companies in conjunction with the phone hacking scandal. Investigations listed here concern interception of voicemail, hacking of computers, obtaining confidential information under false pretenses, and payments to officials. Dates in parentheses indicate approximately when each investigation was initiated or considered.
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Prior to 2010 investigations focused on just a few individuals, even though there was evidence of many people being engaged in illegal activity. "The lead investigator in Operation Motorman, a 2006 inquiry...said that his team were told not to interview journalists involved. The investigator...accused authorities of being too 'frightened' to tackle journalists."[1] In August 2006, the Metropolitan Police Service (Scotland Yard) seized from a private investigator (Glenn Mulcaire) “11,000 pages of handwritten notes listing nearly 4,000 celebrities, politicians, sports stars, police officials and crime victims whose phone may have been hacked by News of the World.” These documents remained largely unevaluated until the autumn of 2010, even though “senior Scotland Yard officials assured Parliament, judges, lawyers, potential hacking victims, the news media and the public that there was no evidence of widespread hacking by the tabloid.” Testimony indicated that “the police agency and News International … became so intertwined that they wound up sharing the goal of containing the investigation.[2] Through March 2011, no News of the World executives or reporters other than Goodman were questioned.[3]
By September 2012, The Metropolitan Police had a total of 185 officers investigating illegal acquisition of confidential information at a cost estimated at £9 million for 2012 and £40 million forecast over four years. This included 96 officers investigating under Operation Weeting, 70 under Operation Elveden and 19 under Operation Tuleta.[4]