Murdoch papers paid £1m to gag phone-hacking victims

[babsbunny]

Murdoch papers paid £1m to gag phone-hacking victims

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/jul/08/murdoch-papers-phone-hacking

* Nick Davies
* guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 8 July 2009 17.33 BST

Rupert Murdoch's News Group Newspapers has paid out more than £1m to settle legal cases that threatened to reveal evidence of his journalists' repeated involvement in the use of criminal methods to get stories.

The payments secured secrecy over out-of-court settlements in three cases that threatened to expose evidence of Murdoch journalists using private investigators who illegally hacked into the mobile phone messages of numerous public figures and to gain unlawful access to confidential personal data including tax records, social security files, bank statements and itemised phone bills. Cabinet ministers, MPs, actors and sports stars were all targets of the private investigators.