Not only does the ghost of the Phone hacking scandal News of the World live on, it continues to haunt everyone associated with it when it was one of the most popular (and unethical) news sources in England and for many around the world. Many of the higher ups in the company were questioned most famously Rebekah Brooks and Piers Morgan. With Piers Morgan being questioned again a couple days ago, a question comes to mind, who actually facilitated the phone hacking? Surely a group of journalists wouldn’t have the technical know-how to hack into the phones of major celebrities.
While no one can say that the Private Detectives involved in the Phone Hacking scandal got away lightly, their public image surely wasn’t as battered as the more popular names involved in the debacle. Amongst the Private Detectives caught in the net, Glenn Mulcaire and Jonathan Rees, both private detectives based in London, are probably the most well known. Mr. Mulclaire plead guilty to charges of hacking the phones of members of the Royal family all the way back in 2006. Mr. Rees was jailed in 2000 for seven years for the crime of ‘attempting to to pervert the course of justice’. Clearly, the two Private Detectives involved had a problem making moral judgements Detectives often have to make far before the phone hacking scandal and didn’t really know lines that shouldn’t be crossed, ending up on the wrong side more often than most Detectives. There are alleged to be up to 12,800 victims or those affected by the phone hacking by the Detectives, most of them Celebrities, major and minor, including Actors, Footballers, Models and even members of the Royal families. While that alone is reprehensible, the more shocking aspect was the hacking of phones belonging to relatives of killed British soldiers, 7/11 attack victims and family of murdered or missing children like Madeline McCann and Milly Dowler.
These Private Detectives used their gifts for personal gains, to the tune of at least £150,000 a year to Mr. Rees alone, instead of helping people in need. Illegally hacking the phone of and invading the privacy of countless innocents and sullying the name of good Private Detectives in the process.