Dial M for Murdoch: News Corporation and the Corruption of Britain (51 page)

9. Rupert Murdoch’s right-hand man, Les Hinton, authorized the payments to Goodman and Mulcaire in 2007, before leaving the UK to take charge of News Corp’s new acquisition, Dow Jones.

10. By splashing the private life of the Formula 1 motor-racing chief Max Mosley over its front page, the
News of the World
made an intelligent, wealthy and tenacious enemy.

11. Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Footballers’ Association, was the first phone-hacking victim to mount a legal challenge to News International. In June 2008 he accepted an out-of-court settlement of £425,000.

12. With her fellow Manchester lawyer Mark Lewis (
plate 33
), Charlotte Harris took on the
News of the World
. In a failed bid to discredit her, the newspaper placed her under surveillance.

13. From his home in Lewes, East Sussex, the
Guardian
’s Nick Davies was one of the indefatigable individuals who unpicked the ‘rogue reporter’ defence and humbled Murdoch’s $60 billion News Corp.

14. The
News of the World
’s chief reporter, Neville Thurlbeck, for whom the infamous ‘for Neville’ email was intended.

15. ‘Yates of the Yard’: John Yates, Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, who in 2009 declared his faith in the original police investigation, Operation Caryatid, after a review lasting several hours.

16. John Yates’s good friend Neil ‘Wolfman’ Wallis, deputy editor of the
News of the World
. In 2009, Scotland Yard gave him a job. In 2011 it arrested him.

17. Despite being warned about Andy Coulson’s past, the Conservative leader’s director of communications was too useful to lose. With the former
News of the World
editor by his side, David Cameron found the ‘tabloid touch’.

18. Within months of winning most seats at the May 2010 general election with Murdoch’s support, the Conservatives backed News Corp’s £7bn takeover bid for Britain’s richest TV network, BSkyB.

19. The Golden Lion pub in Sydenham, east London, in whose car park Daniel Morgan was murdered in 1987.

20. Jonathan Rees, whose office was bugged by the Metropolitan Police, said: ‘No one pays like the
News of the World
do.’ Andy Coulson’s
News of the World
re-employed Rees after he was jailed for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.