Meet our News of the World Sub Editor....Al Wijat who is being trained by his Dad Mr Wijat to take over Mr Wijat's INL News Group when his Dad retires appointed his upstart son Al Wijat as sub editor News of the World when Mr Mr Wijat's INL News Group took over control of News of the World after his arch enemy Rupert Murdoch and his son James Murdoch tried to close News of the World down...but now the original News of the World Editor has been arrested afterresigning from his new job as Press Officer for David Cameron, the Prime Minster of Britain... Al Wijat has been promoted to News of the World Editor .. Al says he is determined to make sure there are no more bribes to bent London Met Police and payments to corrupt private investigators for phone hacking of politicians, and other news worthy people..
Martin Hickman: Was Sean Hoare killed by the Murdoch empire?
The short answer is no
The who organised the murder and cover up of the murder of Sean Hoare?
Who had most to lose if Sean Hoare had lived to tell his story in a court of law, judicial inquiry and/or in front of the parliamentary select committee on the 19th July 2011?
Answer: The London Metropolitan Police
Who has the best ability to cover up the murder of Sean Hoare?
Answer: The London Metropolitan Police?
Who has the best ability and resources and has access to MI5 and MI6resources as well to use to murder Sean Hoare?
Answer: The London Metropolitan Police?
Who is in charge of the investigation of the murder of Sean Hoare?
Answer: The London Metropolitan Police?
Who is mostly to blame in the Murdoch-News of the world phone hacking, blinging, police bribery etc scandal?
Answer: The London Metropolitan Police?
How many London Met Police Officers have been charged for bribery and the illegal use of police information and resources?
Answer: None
Who do the London Met Police think that the public going to point the finger at for the murder of Sean Hoare?
Answer? The Murdoch Gang
What were the new serious statements that Sean Hoare were making to New York Times Reporters in recent days that would want some one or some group to murder Sean Hoaare in a rather hurry before he was called to the Parliamentary Select Committee on the 19th July, 2011 that would have blow the lid of this affair right open?
Answer: The London Metropolitan Police involvement with the news staff at the News of the World in using police sources and technology to find where someone was buy using police computers and other police technology to locate a person's whereabouts by through their mobile phone for a fee of £300 a time. Sean Hoare was starting to make statements to international reporters about the endemic practice and involvement of the London Met Police in this practice known as blinging in the news trade. Yes the London Met Police had to immediately silence Sean Hoare and make sure he could not attend the Parliamentary Select Committee on the 19th July, 2011 to give evidence for the whole world to see on line about his knowledge of this practice of blinging that members of the London Metropolitan Police had been doing for years for a fee of £300 a time. There is no doubt that the most senior members of the London Metropolitan Police including the one that has just resigned Sir Paul Stephenson, simply had to call in a favour of MI5 and M16 to have Sean Hoare quietly murdered using a new drug they have that can cause a heart attack and can not be detected after death in the body and can be placed in a glass of water without the person drinking it being able to detect that it has been put into the water as it has no taste and no colour. This is what was used to murder the famous millionaire businessman Laurie Connel on Western Australia when he threatened to expose many of the most powerful people in Australian politics and business circles if he went to jail over fraud charges he was defending in court at the time of his death when he collapsed during his trial where he was defending himself because he realised all his lawyers were corrupt and could not be trusted and decided the only way to try and obtain a fair hearing was to represent himself and expose all the powerful people he was the Bag Man for all their millions in cash money transactions for many years in Australia. Those that Laurie Connel could expose, just like the London Metropolitan Police could not allow Sean Hoare to be alive on the morning of the 19th July, 2011 to give evidence to the Parliamentary Select Committee on the 19th July, 2011, simply could not allow Laurie Connel ( known as the Lender of the Last Resort) to live and tell his story...to the court and expose all those powerful people...
20th July 2011
Sean Hoare looks likely to take his place behind Princess Diana and David Kelly in the roll call of controversial deaths. Within hours of reports of his untimely demise, conspiracy theorists were questioning whether he had been murdered.
"Another murder cover-up?" asked one online. Another wrote: "Nothing that the British police can say will convince me that Sean Hoare's death was natural causes."
The decision of many newspapers, but not The Independent, to splash on the sensational death of the "phone-hacking whistleblower" posed the question in some readers' minds: was this man killed by the Murdoch empire? The answer is – unexcitedly but almost certainly – "no".
True, we do not yet have all the facts, but there are many reasons why Mr Hoare's death presents no more of a conspiracy than the failure of Princess Diana to fasten her seatbelt while being driven through the Pont de l'Alma road tunnel in Paris in 1997.
Firstly, Mr Hoare was not in possession of unique information about the wrongdoing at the News of the World, nor was he the only one to point the finger at Andy Coulson, its former editor. During its excellent investigation into the "hack attack" last year, The New York Times spoke to 12 current or former NOTW staff, who said hacking was rife.
Secondly, the new inquiry into phone hacking, Operation Weeting, was always unlikely to base its case on the testimony of one ex-employee. While statements may form part of its case, a much bigger part will rely on emails discovered or forensically recovered from News International's digital archive, electronic payment invoices and phone records.
Even if Weeting were to make personal testimony central, it was unlikely to have been Mr Hoare's, since he had been dismissed from the NOTW for drink and drug problems and could be portrayed as an unreliable witness.
Thirdly, the (unspoken but tangible) suggestion that News International might want to send death squads scuttling round Britain to silence witnesses is absurd, and especially so given the trouble it already faces.
Notwithstanding its dark arts, deceit and links to criminals, NI's new strategy is PR-led; it wants to now co-operate with the police and apologise for the mess.
Fourthly, Mr Hoare's death is not being investigated by the Metropolitan Police but by the Hertfordshire force, whose statement that the death was not thought to be suspicious was probably a disappointment to Hertfordshire's best detectives, who may have been only too keen to get one over on their big city colleagues.
Finally, Mr Hoare was not in good health. He was reported to be looking yellow and his doctor had remarked that he should have been dead.
And this is where Mr Hoare almost certainly was a "victim" of News International. He was told to do whatever it took to get the story; he went on marathon benders and snorted coke with rock stars. He had some great times as a show business journalist. But he decided to tell the truth about the illegal methods used to land stories. In that he was brave, and that is what he should be remembered for, not the manner of his passing.
The decision of many newspapers, but not The Independent, to splash on the sensational death of the "phone-hacking whistleblower" posed the question in some readers' minds: was this man killed by the Murdoch empire? The answer is – unexcitedly but almost certainly – "no".
True, we do not yet have all the facts, but there are many reasons why Mr Hoare's death presents no more of a conspiracy than the failure of Princess Diana to fasten her seatbelt while being driven through the Pont de l'Alma road tunnel in Paris in 1997.
Firstly, Mr Hoare was not in possession of unique information about the wrongdoing at the News of the World, nor was he the only one to point the finger at Andy Coulson, its former editor. During its excellent investigation into the "hack attack" last year, The New York Times spoke to 12 current or former NOTW staff, who said hacking was rife.
Secondly, the new inquiry into phone hacking, Operation Weeting, was always unlikely to base its case on the testimony of one ex-employee. While statements may form part of its case, a much bigger part will rely on emails discovered or forensically recovered from News International's digital archive, electronic payment invoices and phone records.
Even if Weeting were to make personal testimony central, it was unlikely to have been Mr Hoare's, since he had been dismissed from the NOTW for drink and drug problems and could be portrayed as an unreliable witness.
Thirdly, the (unspoken but tangible) suggestion that News International might want to send death squads scuttling round Britain to silence witnesses is absurd, and especially so given the trouble it already faces.
Notwithstanding its dark arts, deceit and links to criminals, NI's new strategy is PR-led; it wants to now co-operate with the police and apologise for the mess.
Fourthly, Mr Hoare's death is not being investigated by the Metropolitan Police but by the Hertfordshire force, whose statement that the death was not thought to be suspicious was probably a disappointment to Hertfordshire's best detectives, who may have been only too keen to get one over on their big city colleagues.
Finally, Mr Hoare was not in good health. He was reported to be looking yellow and his doctor had remarked that he should have been dead.
And this is where Mr Hoare almost certainly was a "victim" of News International. He was told to do whatever it took to get the story; he went on marathon benders and snorted coke with rock stars. He had some great times as a show business journalist. But he decided to tell the truth about the illegal methods used to land stories. In that he was brave, and that is what he should be remembered for, not the manner of his passing.
THE Met Police’s communications boss yesterday admitted 10 out of 45 press office staff used to work at the News of the World.
Dick Fedorcio also told the Select Committee he never asked former NoW deputy editor Neil Wallis about phone hacking before taking him on as a consultant. He instead claimed assistant commissioner John Yates, a friend of Mr Wallis, undertook a process of due diligence in vetting him.
But when quizzed by MPs, Mr Yates said this was “over-egging the pudding” and the tendering process was ultimately down to Mr Fedorcio. Asked if he would have appointed Mr Wallis in hindsight, Mr Fedorcio said: “Certainly not”, adding he could not remember who suggested Mr Wallis for the job but denied it was then-News International chief Rebekah Brooks.
Mr Fedorcio also said he was “dismayed” at reports he favoured the NoW when placing stories, even though almost a quarter of his staff were ex-employees. The Met has referred his dealings with Mr Wallis to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.
Meanwhile, former Met chief Sir Paul Stephenson yesterday said he resigned to prevent continuing damaging speculation over his role in the scandal in the run-up to the London Olympics.
Hoare first made his claims in a New York Times investigation into the phone-hacking allegations at the News of the World. Photograph: Hazel Thompson/Eyevine
Sean Hoare, the former News of the World showbusiness reporter who was the first named journalist to allege that Andy Coulson was aware of phone hacking by his staff, has been found dead .
Hoare, who worked on the Sun and the News of the World with Coulson before being dismissed for drink and drugs problems, was said to have been found at his Watford home.
Hertfordshire police would not confirm his identity, but said in a statement: "At 10.40am today [Monday 18 July] police were called to Langley Road, Watford, following the concerns for the welfare of a man who lives at an address on the street. Upon police and ambulance arrival at a property, the body of a man was found. The man was pronounced dead at the scene shortly after.
"The death is currently being treated as unexplained but not thought to be suspicious. Police investigations into this incident are ongoing."
There was an unexplained delay in the arrival of forensics officers at the scene.
Neighbours said three police cars and two ambulances arrived at the property shortly before 11am. They left around four hours later, around 3pm, shortly after a man and a woman, believed to be grieving relatives, arrived at the premises. There was no police presence at the scene at all for several hours.
The curtains were drawn at the first-floor apartment in a new-build block of flats.
At about 9.15pm, three hours after the Guardian revealed Hoare had been found dead a police van marked "Scientific Services Unit" pulled up at the address, where a police car was already parked. Two officers emerged carrying evidence bags, clipboards, torches and laptop-style bags and entered the building. Three officers carrying cameras and wearing white forensic suits went into the flat at around 9.30pm.
Hoare was in his mid-40s. He first made his claims in a New York Times investigation into the phone-hacking allegations at the News of the World. He told the newspaper that not only did Coulson know of the hacking, but he also actively encouraged his staff to intercept the calls of celebrities in the pursuit of exclusives.
In a subsequent interview with the BBC he alleged he was personally asked by his editor at the time, Coulson, to tap into phones. In an interview with the PM programme he said Coulson's insistence he did not know of the practice was "a lie, it is simply a lie". At the time a Downing Street spokeswoman said Coulson totally and utterly denied the allegations; he had "never condoned the use of phone hacking and nor do I have any recollection of incidences where hacking took place".
Hoare said he was once a close friend of Coulson's, and told the New York Times the two first worked together at the Sun, where, Hoare said, he played recordings of hacked messages for Coulson. At the News of the World, Hoare said, he continued to inform Coulson of his activities. He "actively encouraged me to do it", Hoare said. In September last year he was interviewed under caution by police over his claim the former Tory communications chief asked him to hack into phones when editor of the paper, but declined to make any comment.
Hoare returned to the spotlight last week, after he told the New York Times that reporters at the NoW were able to use police technology to locate people using their mobile phone signals, in exchange for payments to police officers. He said journalists were able to use "pinging", which measured the distance between a mobile handset and a number of phone masts to pinpoint its location.
Hoare gave further details about "pinging" to the Guardian last week. He described how reporters would ask a news desk executive to obtain the location of a target: "Within 15 to 30 minutes someone on the news desk would come back and say 'Right, that's where they are.'"
He said: "You'd just go to the news desk and they'd come back to you. You don't ask any questions. You'd consider it a job done.
"The chain of command is one of absolute discipline, and that's why I never bought into it, like with Andy saying he wasn't aware of it and all that. That's bollocks."
He said he stood by everything he told the New York Times of "pinging". "I don't know how often it happened. That would be wrong of me. But if I had access, as a humble reporter … "
He admitted he had had problems with drink and drugs, and had been in rehab. "But that's irrelevant," he said. "There's more to come. This is not going to go away."
Hoare named a private investigator who he said had links with the News of the World, adding: "He may want to talk now, because I think what you'll find now is a lot of people are going to want to cover their arse." Speaking to another Guardian journalist last week, Hoare repeatedly expressed the hope that the hacking scandal would lead to journalism in general being cleaned up, and said he had decided to blow the whistle on the activities of some of his former NoW colleagues with that aim in mind.
He also said he had been injured the previous weekend while taking down a marquee erected for a children's party. He said he broke his nose and badly injured his foot when a relative accidentally struck him with a pole from the marquee. Hoare also emphasised that he was not making any money from telling his story.
Having been treated for drug and alcohol problems, Hoare reminisced about his partying with former pop stars and said that he missed the days when he was able to go out on the town.
On Monday evening the curtains were drawn at his home, a first-floor apartment in a new-build block of flats.
A neighbour living opposite, Nicky Dormer, said three police cars and two ambulances arrived at the property at 11am; police left at 3pm, shortly after a man and a woman, believed to be grieving relatives, arrived at the premises.
She and another neighbour described Hoare as a jovial man who would often sit on his balcony, overlooking the block entrance, and talk to residents. They said he lived in the block with his partner, a woman called Jo, who they believed had been away on holiday. Neither had seen Hoare for a few days.
Paul Pritchard, 30, another neighbour, said Sean Hoare was "the most sociable" resident, and they would regularly see him watering the communal front lawn.
"It is just such a shock. About a month ago he said he felt unwell and he said he went to the doctors for a checkup. Then I saw him again and he seemed well."
The Watford home of Sean Hoare, the former reporter for the News of the World who has been found dead. Photograph: Jonathan Hordle/Rex Features
A postmortem on the body of Sean Hoare, the News of the Worldwhistleblower found dead on Monday, is expected to provide a preliminary cause of death.
Police are treating the death of Hoare, 47, as "unexplained but not thought to be suspicious". Hoare was the first named journalist to allege that Andy Coulson, the former News of the World editor, was aware of phone hacking by his staff.
Hoare worked for the Sun and NoW with Coulson before being dismissed for drink and drugs problems, and had spoken openly to a number of news organisations about the practice of phone hacking.
Detectives from Hertfordshire police's major crimes unit are running the investigation because of the high profile of Hoare's death.
They are understood to be awaiting the outcome of the postmortem, due to begin at 2pm on Tuesday, while seeking to establish the last time he was seen alive.
The force said in a statement: "Police investigations continue into the unexplained death of a man who, whilst formal identification is yet to take place, police believe to be Sean Hoare. The postmortem is set to take place today [Tuesday]. The man's next of kin have been informed and the family are being supported by police at this sad time."
The former tabloid journalist is understood to have lived at the first floor flat in Watford with his partner, Jo. Hoare's body was found in the flat at 10.40am on Monday. Neighbours described seeing police and ambulance at the scene until about 3pm.
It was not until after 9pm, two hours after news broke that the phone-hacking whistleblower had been found dead, that more uniformed and plainclothes police arrived at the scene. At about 9.15pm, a police van marked Scientific Services Unit pulled up at the address, where a police car was already parked.
Two officers emerged carrying evidence bags, clipboards, torches and laptop-style bags and entered the building. Three officers carrying cameras and in white forensic suits followed at 9.30pm.
Police sources said that it was "not unusual" for a forensics team to investigate the scene of an unexplained death. The former showbusiness reporter struggled with drug and alcohol problems, and is known to have been unwell in recent weeks.
Hoare returned to the spotlight last Tuesday, after he told the New York Times that reporters at the NoW were able to use police technology to locate people using their mobile phone signals, in exchange for payments to police officers. He said journalists were able to purchase the mobile phone tracking data from police for just £300.
That evening he had dinner with two New York Times journalist involved in the story, Don Van Natta Jr and Jo Becker. Van Natta Jr tweeted on Monday night: "RIP Sean Hoare. Jo Becker and I had dinner with him last Tues night. He was ailing but defiant and funny. And no regrets. All-courage."
Hoare gave further details about so-called "pinging" to Guardian journalists on Tuesday and Wednesday. He described how reporters would ask a newsdesk executive to obtain the location of a target. He said: "Within 15 to 30 minutes someone on the newsdesk would come back and say 'Right, that's where they are.' "
He added: "You'd just go to the newsdesk and they'd come back to you. You don't ask any questions. You'd consider it a job done."
Hoare repeatedly expressed the hope that the hacking scandal would lead to journalism in general being cleaned up, and said he had decided to blow the whistle on the activities of some of his former NoW colleagues with that aim in mind.
Repeated calls to Hoare's home telephone number on Thursday and Friday went unanswered.
Sean Hoare, a tabloid reporter who worked at the Sun and the People as well as the News of the World, in his sitting room at home. Photograph: Hazel Thompson /eyevine
Former colleagues have been paying tribute to Sean Hoare, the formerNews of the World entertainment correspondent who was found dead at his Watford home on Monday.
David Yelland, who edited the Sun from 1998 to 2003, used Twitter to say: "Sean Hoare was trying to be honest, struggling with addiction. But he was a good man. My God."
Ben Proctor, who worked with Hoare over many years and was most recently deputy editor of the People, recalled him fondly as "an old fashioned Fleet Street character".
"Typically with Sean he managed to became close to Liam Gallagher. Liam even helped Sean's fledgling freelance career when the News of the World cut him adrift, offering to assist him with background info on a book about Oasis," he said.
Proctor told the Guardian that Hoare was "imbued with an incredible earthy charm", as well as being a great reporter.
"Like a cross between Arthur Daley and Del Trotter, you could always rely on Sean to persuade people to part with the facts."
Hoare, said Proctor, was a journalist of traditional vintage: "An old fashioned Fleet Street character, always in the pub but always with a story."
Though the most of the tributes were warm, Proctor portrayed a man with some hard edges:
"When I first met him he offered to break my knee caps over some 'creative differences'. But another time, when word went round I had a problem, he was first to my home to lend support. I always loved him, everybody did."
Others who worked alongside Hoare recounted fond memories from when they were young and green.
They included the Guardian's columnist Marina Hyde, who worked as a secretary at the Sun, and wrote on Twitter: "Utterly tragic news about my friend Sean Hoare, the first journalist to speak to me when I started as a secretary ... He continued to be kind to me until the very end, and he was more special than I can possibly say."
Simon Ricketts, a Guardian journalist, recalled on Twitter that Hoare was "a lovely generous man" who took him under his wing as a work experience reporter on a local paper: "He handed me a story on a plate. I went out to investigate, got all my notes and got back to the office and started to write it."
"I finished and Sean had a look. He got my notebook, extracted the best quotes, the one's I'd left in the notebook. He tickled, edited and expanded my story.
"By the time he'd finished, it was 100 times better. It got put on the front page of the paper. Sean insisted that my name go on the story. When the paper came out, he walked over with a copy. He gave me it with a flourish. "Congratulations on your first-ever splash," he said."
Ricketts concludes, "I shall raise a glass or 12 tonight to him."
According to reports, Laura Elston was arrested on suspicion of hacking the voicemails of Paddy Harverson, pictured, Prince Charles's spokesman. Clarence House reportedly told police she was innocent. Photograph: John Peters/PA
A journalist arrested by police investigating phone hacking at the News of the World faces no further action, her lawyer said on Monday.
Laura Elston, 34, who works for the Press Association news agency, was held for several hours on 27 June when she voluntarily went to a central London police station.
Her solicitor, David Corker, said he had been told she faced no further action: "She has been dropped from the inquiry."
Scotland Yard confirmed a 34-year-old arrested in June had had her bail cancelled and been told she faced no further action.
Elston had been questioned on suspicion of intercepting communications, contrary to section 1 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, and was the only journalist arrested so far with no known News International links.
Elston works as a royal correspondent and was originally released on police bail until October. She joined the organisation as a graduate trainee in 2000.
PA editor Jonathan Grun said: "Laura Elston is a journalist of integrity who has had a distinguished career since joining us as a trainee more than a decade ago. We are pleased that this matter has been cleared up."
She was interviewed by detectives on Operation Weeting, the investigation launched by the Metropolitan police in January following new allegations of phone hacking.
According to the Sunday Mirror, Elston was arrested on suspicion of hacking the voicemails of Prince Charles's spokesman Paddy Harverson.
The allegation related to Elston's phone being used to call Harverson when they were both in Lesotho in 2006.
The paper said it understood Harverson told police he borrowed her phone to access voicemails because his own mobile was not working.
Clarence House was reportedly satisfied Elston did nothing criminal and told detectives she was innocent.
Clarence House, the official residence of the Prince of Wales, declined to comment on the claim on Monday.
Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre said he received reports that News International executives had encouraged celebrities to investigate whether their phones had been hacked by Mail newspapers. Photograph: Ben Birchall/PA
Paul Dacre, editor of the Daily Mail, told senior managers he had received reports from PR agencies, footballers and others that News International executives had encouraged them to investigate whether their phones had been hacked by Mail group newspapers, according to the New York Times.
Based on interviews said to have been carried out with former News International staff, the New York Times also claimed Rebekah Brooks had spearheaded a strategy in recent months that appeared designed to spread the blame for hacking across Fleet Street. Several former NoW journalists claimed she asked them to dig up evidence of hacking by others, while one said Brooks's target was not her own newspapers, but those of her rivals.
In an account relayed to his management team, Dacre confronted Brooks at a hotel, telling her: "You are trying to tear down the entire industry."
Lady Claudia Rothermere, wife of the owner of the Mail, was also said to have overheard Brooks say at a dinner party that the Mail was just as culpable as the NoW.
"We didn't break the law," Lady Rothermere said, according to two sources who spoke to the New York Times. Brooks was said to have asked who Rothermere thought she was – "Mother Teresa?"
By the middle of last year, News International's lawyers and some executives were also said to have been urging that the company accept some responsibility – but Brooks disagreed. "Her behaviour all along has been resist, resist, resist," one company official was reported to have said. The US newspaper reported that Rupert Murdoch wanted to "fly commercial to London," so that he might be seen as a man of the people as he prepared to leave a conference in Idaho and come to the UK to take charge of the crisis enveloping his media empire.
He was said to have been told that would hardly do the trick, and Murdoch instead arrived in the UK on a Gulfstream G550 private jet.
Former company executives and political aides also told the New York Times that News International executives engaged in a campaign of selective leaks implicating previous management and the police.
Paul Dacre said the Daily Mail would never 'countenance' using phone hacking or 'blagging'. Photograph: Ben Birchall/PA Wire/PA Photos
The Daily Mail has never knowingly published a story based on information gleaned from phone hacking or "blagging", the paper's editor, Paul Dacre, told MPs on Monday.
Dacre, the editor-in-chief of Daily Mail publisher Associated Newspapers, told a joint parliamentary select committee on defamation law reform that he had "absolutely not" published a story he knew was based on unlawfully-accessed material.
Asked by Baroness Hayter whether he had ever "countenanced" phone hacking or blagging – a phrase used to cover a range of techniques used to get hold of private information – in his 19 years at the Mail, Dacre said: "No."
Asked whether unlawful newsgathering techniques could ever be justified, he said: "Goodness me, deep waters. I have considerable sympathy that if there's a great public interest then those methods can be justified."
However, he added later: "I don't think you should ever use hacking or blagging as a [public interest] defence because they're criminal offences."
Dacre made the rare public appearance to give evidence before a joint Commons and Lords committee on the government's draft defamation bill.
Fleet Street's longest-serving editor and a longtime supporter of the Press Complaints Commission, conceded that the self-regulatory body needed to be "radically reformed". But he conceded that it was the "least imperfect system known to man".
The Daily Mail editor is the chairman of the editors' code of practice committee, which formulates the PCC's guidelines for newspapers and magazines.
Dacre described defamation law in the UK as having a "chilling effect" on newspapers, adding that it had got "exponentially worse" in recent years. "There's not a day goes by when predatory lawyers don't try it on, encouraged by vast sums of money which can be made – most of which goes to them."
He added: "The law is becoming more and more onerous and journalists are having to become more and more respectful so it is having a chilling effect."
In April 2009, Dacre revealed that the Daily Mail had recently sacked a journalist for unauthorised use of a private detective to obtain illegal information about people.
An investigation by the information commissioner in December 2006revealed that more than 50 Daily Mail journalists had paid private detectives to obtain 982 pieces of information about celebrities and other individuals.
Associated Newspaper dismissed the investigation, dubbed Operation Motorman, at the time as "utterly meaningless" as it was a snapshot based on the activities of one private detective agency, run by Steve Whittamore. Whittamore, sold information he obtained from the police national computer until he was exposed and convicted in 2005.
The Daily Mail came out on top of a list of newspapers that had used Whittamore's services. Others included the Mail's Associated Newspapers stablemate the Mail on Sunday, the Sunday People, Daily Mirror, Sunday Times and Observer (which is published by Guardian News & Media).
When the information commissioner's report was published in late 2006 an Associated spokesman said the publisher "in common with all newspapers and broadcasters, and many other organisations, including lawyers, use search agencies to obtain information entirely legitimately from a range of public sources ... In addition, the law specifically makes provision for journalists making inquiries in the public interest".
Dacre told the Commons culture, media and sport select committee in 2009 that following the information commissioner's 2006 report, the Daily Mail had banned reporters from using outside agents to supply personal information following, except in cases of overwhelming public interest.
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Sean Hoare worked with Andy Coulson (above) at the Sun and News of the World, but was later fired by him. Photograph: Lewis Whyld/PA
At a time when the reputation of News of the World journalists is at rock bottom, it needs to be said that the paper's former showbusiness correspondent Sean Hoare, who died on Monday, was a lovely man.
In the saga of the phone-hacking scandal, he distinguished himself by being the first former NoW journalist to come out on the record, telling the New York Times last year that his former friend and editor, Andy Coulson, had actively encouraged him to hack into voicemail.
That took courage. But he had a particularly powerful motive for speaking. He knew how destructive the News of the World could be, not just for the targets of its exposés, but also for the ordinary journalists who worked there, who got caught up in its remorseless drive for headlines.
Explaining why he had spoken out, he told me: "I want to right a wrong, lift the lid on it, the whole culture. I know, we all know, that the hacking and other stuff is endemic. Because there is so much intimidation. In the newsroom, you have people being fired, breaking down in tears, hitting the bottle."
He knew this very well, because he was himself a victim of the News of the World. As a showbusiness reporter, he had lived what he was happy to call a privileged life. But the reality had ruined his physical health: "I was paid to go out and take drugs with rock stars – get drunk with them, take pills with them, take cocaine with them. It was so competitive. You are going to go beyond the call of duty. You are going to do things that no sane man would do. You're in a machine."
While it was happening, he loved it. He came from a working-class background of solid Arsenal supporters, always voted Labour, defined himself specifically as a "clause IV" socialist who still believed in public ownership of the means of production. But, working as a reporter, he suddenly found himself up to his elbows in drugs and delirium.
He rapidly arrived at the Sun's Bizarre column, then run by Coulson. He recalled: "There was a system on the Sun. We broke good stories. I had a good relationship with Andy. He would let me do what I wanted as long as I brought in a story. The brief was, 'I don't give a fuck'."
He was a born reporter. He could always find stories. And, unlike some of his nastier tabloid colleagues, he did not play the bully with his sources. He was naturally a warm, kind man, who could light up a lamp-post with his talk. From Bizarre, he moved to the Sunday People, under Neil Wallis, and then to the News of the World, where Andy Coulson had become deputy editor. And, persistently, he did as he was told and went out on the road with rock stars, befriending them, bingeing with them, pausing only to file his copy.
He made no secret of his massive ingestion of drugs. He told me how he used to start the day with "a rock star's breakfast" – a line of cocaine and a Jack Daniels – usually in the company of a journalist who now occupies a senior position at the Sun. He reckoned he was using three grammes of cocaine a day, spending about £1,000 a week. Plus endless alcohol. Looking back, he could see it had done him enormous damage. But at the time, as he recalled, most of his colleagues were doing it, too.
"Everyone got overconfident. We thought we could do coke, go to Brown's, sit in the Red Room with Paula Yates and Michael Hutchence. Everyone got a bit carried away."
It must have scared the rest of Fleet Street when he started talking – he had bought, sold and snorted cocaine with some of the most powerful names in tabloid journalism. One retains a senior position on the Daily Mirror. "I last saw him in Little Havana," he recalled, "at three in the morning, on his hands and knees. He had lost his cocaine wrap. I said to him, 'This is not really the behaviour we expect of a senior journalist from a great Labour paper.' He said, 'Have you got any fucking drugs?'"
And the voicemail hacking was all part of the great game. The idea that it was a secret, or the work of some "rogue reporter", had him rocking in his chair: "Everyone was doing it. Everybody got a bit carried away with this power that they had. No one came close to catching us." He would hack messages and delete them so the competition could not hear them, or hack messages and swap them with mates on other papers.
In the end, his body would not take it any more. He said he started to have fits, that his liver was in such a terrible state that a doctor told him he must be dead. And, as his health collapsed, he was sacked by the News of the World – by his old friend Coulson.
When he spoke out about the voicemail hacking, some Conservative MPs were quick to smear him, spreading tales of his drug use as though that meant he was dishonest. He was genuinely offended by the lies being told by News International and always willing to help me and other reporters who were trying to expose the truth. He was equally offended when Scotland Yard's former assistant commissioner, John Yates, assigned officers to interview him, not as a witness but as a suspect. They told him anything he said could be used against him, and, to his credit, he refused to have anything to do with them.
His health never recovered. He liked to say that he had stopped drinking, but he would treat himself to some red wine. He liked to say he didn't smoke any more, but he would stop for a cigarette on his way home. For better and worse, he was a Fleet Street man.
Lord Macdonald was in charge of the CPS when the phone-hacking prosecution of the NoW’s royal correspondent took place. Photograph: Tim Ireland/PA
"Blindingly obvious" evidence of corrupt payments to police officers was found by the former director of public prosecutions, Lord Macdonald, when he inspected News of the World emails, the home affairs select committee was told.
Explaining how he had been called in by solicitors acting for Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation board, Lord Macdonald said that when he inspected the messages it took him between "three to five minutes" to decide that the material had to be passed to police.
"The material I saw was so blindingly obvious that trying to argue that it should not be given to the police would have been a hard task. It was evidence of serious criminal offences."
He first showed it to the News Corp board in June this year. "There was no dissent," he recalled. "They were stunned. They were shocked. I said it was my unequivocal advice that it should be handed to the police. They accepted that."
That board meeting, the former DPP said, was chaired by Rupert Murdoch.
Lord Macdonald shortly afterwards gave the material to Assistant Commissioner Cressida Dick at the Metropolitan police. The nine or 10 emails passed over led to the launch of Operation Elveden, the police investigation into corrupt payments to officers for information.
Lord Macdonald, who had been in charge of the Crown Prosecution Service when the phone-hacking prosecution of the NoW's royal correspondent took place, said he had only been alerted to the case due to the convention that the DPP is always notified of crimes involving the royal family.
Members of the committee were highly critical of the CPS's narrow definition of what constituted phone hacking, claiming that it was at odds with the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act.
Mark Reckless, the Conservative MP for Rochester, said that the original police investigation was hindered by the advice from the CPS that phone hacking was only an offence if messages had been intercepted before they were listened to by the intended recipient. However, Reckless said, a clause in the RIPA makes it an offence to hack in to messages even if they have already been heard.
Keir Starmer, the current DPP, said that the police had been told that "the RIPA legislation was untested". Listening to messages before they had been heard by the intended recipient was illegal, the police were told, but the question of whether intercepting them afterwards constituted a crime was "untested", he said.
Mark Lewis, the solicitor who has followed the scandal since its start, said he was the first person to lose his job over the affair when the firm in which he was a partner said it no longer wished him to pursue other victims' claims.
Lewis also told MPs that he had been threatened by lawyers acting for John Yates, the former assistant commissioner at the Metropolitan police, because of comments he had made about phone hacking.
"I have copies of a letter from Carter Ruck [solicitors] threatening to sue me on behalf of John Yates," Lewis told the home affairs select committee. He said the Guardian and the Labour MP Chris Bryant had also received threats of being sued. "The costs of the action were paid for by the Metropolitan Police, by the taxpayer," he added.
Lewis said the reason for the investigation taking so long was not due solely to the police. "The DPP seems to have got it wrong and needs to be helped out," he said.
A new witness statement handed to the High Court of Justice showing Julian Assange was set up by the CIA
A new witness statement dated 13th July, 2011 has now been presented to Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Ouseley who are the two High Court Judges hearing the Julian Assange Extradition and also presented to Clare
Montgomery QC, appearing for the Swedish prosecution authority on the
last day of Assange's appeal against extradition, who has falsely stated to a packed said complaints
against him showed a lack of consent during a string of sexual
encounters in Stockholm last August. Clare
Montgomery QC said the charges set out on the
European arrest warrant and supported by witness statements amount to
valid allegations. However, in fairness to Clare
Montgomery QC of Matrix Chambera London WC1R 5LN Telphone: +44(0) 207 404 3447 Fax: +44(0) 207 611 9369 until she received a copy of the witness statement varifying that Julian Assange’s rape accusers, Anna Ardin and Sofia Wilén had fabricated their stories to set up Julian Assange for the CIA and
the USA, Clare
Montgomery QC had not realised she had been hoodwinked by the Swedish Government to present a fasified set of facts and story to the High Court of Justice. In the light of being presented this new evidence it is understood that Clare
Montgomery QC is going to recommend to the Swedish Government that they immediately withdraw from the extradition proceedings and drop all charges against Julian Assange. If the Swedish Govement do not drop these false and wrongful charges, based on fabricated evidence against Jilian Assange in the light of the new evidence, this will cause a international media revolt against the Swedish Government and a hugh 'public outcry for justice for Julian Assange'. The High Court would then have to step is under the inherent jurisdicton of the court to stop this traversity of just occuring, which could end up with Juilan Assange being wrongly/and unjustly executed and/or murdered in a US Jail, the two High Court Judges Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Ouseley hearing the Julian Assange Extradition appeal will have step in in the interest of' justice not only being done, but seen to be done', to grant Julian Assange Extradition Appeal and immediately stop an innocent man being sent to his likely murder and/or wrongful execution in the USA, once Julian Assange is extradited to Sweden and then to the USA.
The only just and fair and humaen way to handle this case now is to set aside and or permanently stay any extrations orders against Julina Assange.
The alternative is for Julian Assange to apply for political Asylum in the UK.
Rape accuser took "trophy photo", says
Assange AFP
December 27th 2010
Assange Accuser Worked with US-Funded, CIA-Tied
Anti-Castro Group December 5, 2010AFP
Julian Assange’s rape accusers are Anna Ardin and Sofia Wilén
Julian Assange’s rape accusers are Anna Ardin and Sofia Wilén who have fabricated their stories to set up Julian Assange for the CIA and the USA Government because they are upset about Wiki Leaks a website Julian Assange founded told the world the truth about what was really going in the bankers-oil and power wars going on in Iraq and Afganistan other places as well. CIA agent Marko also told News of the World that the CIA and USA Government, as a favour for Rupert and James Murdoch and their all powerful media giant News Corp to was making sure' Julian Assange does not see the light of day once he arrives in Sweden and then extradited to the USA'.' Well known in the world media as 'Rothchild's Choice' Barrack Obama' and the extrememly powerful Rothchild Family who control, in various ways and methods, over 60% of ther worlds wealth, mineral and oil resources, governments etc owe hugh favours to Rupert and James Murdoch and their all powerful media giant News Corp for usung their Fox News Net Work in the USA to help Barrack Obama become elected president of the USA. Of course no one would ever dream that after Rupert and James Murdoch and their all powerful media giant News Corp helped David Cameron and his cinservative Party gain power int he U.K, that the would of Westminister including David Cameron who openly trun on Rupert and James Murdoch and their all powerful media giant News Corpas they have now donw, which has encourage other governments around the world to start a Stand Uop to Rupert Campaign and ti is widely now sia dthat Rupert Murch on News Corp are no longer King, President and Prime Minster Makers as they have been for the last 30years... through the pwer their media outlets and organisations have had on convincing the average oerson which way their should vote in a particular elelction.
Power as president of the USA through Rupert Murdoch's
who has it turns out are CIA operatives as admnited by CIA Agent Marko in an exclusive internview with News of the World . A witness statement of this excluiove inbetrview has now been handed ot the two judges handlign the
Ah, then came the dawn. Assange Accuser Worked with US-Funded, CIA-Tied
Anti-Castro Group By Kirk James Murphy, M.D. 04 Dec 2010 [As reported by Israel
Shamir and Paul Bennett in Counterpunch in September]
Julian Assange’s chief accuser in Sweden has a significant history of work with
anti-Castro groups, at least one of which is US funded and openly supported by
a former CIA agent convicted in the mass murder of seventy three Cubans on an
airliner he [Luis Posada Carilles] was involved in blowing up... Who is Julian
Assange’s chief accuser in Sweden?
She’s a gender equity officer at Uppsula
University -- who chose
to associate with a US funded group openly supported by a convicted terrorist
and mass murderer. She just happens to have her work published by a very
well funded group connected with Union Liberal Cubana -- whose leader, Carlos
Alberto Montaner, in turn just happened to pop up on right wing Colombian TV a
few hours after the right-wing coup in Honduras.
The
Swedish prosecutor out to get Julian Assange, described as
“overzealous” in the prestigious German weekly, Die Zeit, once advocated
that men accused of mistreating women be locked up even without a
conviction to give the accusing women time and space to think.
There is heated debate in Sweden whether the hard line taken against Assange by the state attorney is right, the paper says.
“Not an international conspiracy of secret services, but an overzealous
state attorney is regarded as the main reason for (Assange’s) arrest.
“Even an association of young feminist women within the Social
Democratic Party now doubts the seriousness of the accusations and the
professionalism of the state attorney.
“That is remarkable inasmuch as Assange’s alleged victim (Anna Ardin) is a member of this group.”
Even
within the group, Die Zeit writes, it is assumed that the allegations
rest only on Assange allegedly not having used a condom against the will
of his sex partner.
“These claims are not officially confirmed, however. But they would fit
with the behaviour of the Swedish judiciary in the Assange case.”
When the accusations were first voiced to the Swedish police in August, the prosecutors did not lay charges.
Then personnel changed.
A new prosecutor, Marianne Ny, took over the case, distanced herself from the previous decision and laid a rape charge.
Marianne Ny is regarded as a prosecutor who goes especially far. “In one
case of a woman being mistreated she voiced the opinion that men
accused by women but not convicted should in any case be preventively
locked up – to give the women “space to think things over”.
"Only
when the man is in captivity and the woman in quietude gets time to
look at her existence with some distance, does she get the opportunity
to discover how she was treated,” she is quoted as saying at the time.
To
Swedish media Assange’s British lawyer has likened Marianne Ny to an
"unsecured firearm on the tossing deck of a ship in stormy sea”.
WikiLeaks: Julian Assange fears he is subject of an 'illegal investigation'
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has claimed that there could be
an "illegal investigation" being carried out into him.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange celebrates as
he prepares to address the media outside the High Court in central
London yesterday. Photo: AFP/GETTY
News Of The World Exclusive
CIA Agent 'Marko'
who was at the High Court of Justice in London on the 12th July 2011 to monitor the Julian Assange extradition appeal and who were involed in the protests opened up to News Of The World that the the two accusers against Julain Assange which form the basis of the Swedish's Government's attempt to extradite Julian Assange that have filed complaints against Julian Assange in Sweden, are actually
Anna Ardin, is a radical feminist who convinced Wilén to file charges against Assange....
Julian Assange extradition appeal: QCs clash over 'conceptions
of consent'
High court judges adjourn case to consider Swedish prosecution
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange leaves the high court in London after his appeal against extradition to Sweden on sexual assault charges
Julian Assange, the founder ofWikiLeaks, must be extradited toSwedento face accusations ofrape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion, the high court in London heard.
Clare Montgomery QC, appearing for the Swedish prosecution authority on the last day of Assange's appeal against extradition, said complaints against him showed a lack of consent during a string of sexual encounters in Stockholm last August. She said the charges set out on the European arrest warrant and supported by witness statements amount to valid allegations.
Speaking to a packed court four at the Royal Courts of Justice before Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Ouseley adjourned to consider their verdict, she spelled out in graphic detail Assange's alleged behaviour and said the two female complainants known as AA and SW described "circumstances in which they did not freely consent without coercion".
"They were coerced, either by physical force or they were trapped into a situation where they had no choice," Montgomery said. "AA says in her case the prelude to the offence was Mr Assange ripping her clothes off, breaking her necklace, her trying to get dressed again and then letting him undress her." He then had sex with her after pinning her arms and trying to force her legs apart to insert his unprotected penis, which she did not want, she said.
In an increasingly hard fought legal battle, Assange's counsel, Ben Emmerson QC, hit back at what he said were attempts by Montgomery to characterise him as having "19th-century conceptions of consent". It was "crazy" of Montgomery to isolate a moment of lack of consent within sexual encounters that were otherwise consenting. He said police reports in Sweden showed SW had told a friend, Marie Thorn, that she felt police and others around her "railroaded her" into pressing charges. She had only wanted the police to force Assange to take a blood test after she became worried about HIV after unprotected sex with him, he said.
Emmerson said a friend of AA, Donald Bostrom, said "she didn't say at all she had been exposed to abuse and didn't even want to go to the police", and a charge of sexual molestation arising from Assange sharing a single bed with AA was also unfounded.
The European arrest warrant said Assange "deliberately molested the injured party on 18 August 2010 by acting in a manner designed to violate her sexual integrity".
In an interview, AA said Assange undressed below the waist and rubbed his erect penis against her. She found it "strange" and "awkward" and moved to sleep on a mattress on the floor. But Assange's erection was normal, Emmerson told the court.
"He's lying beside her in a single bed my lord," he said. "Men will get erections involuntarily and at different times during a night's sleep. If she chooses to spend a night in a single bed with a man there is a strong possibility she will come into contact with an erect penis. I don't mean that as a joke."
"I agree with you," said Thomas.
However, Montgomery told the court the definition of an extradition offence "means the conduct complained of. It has nothing to do with the evidence."
Thomas appeared to concur: "We are not concerned with whether this is a good case or a bad case but whether what is charged amounts to acrime."
In one of several criticisms of the Swedish authorities, Emmerson said: "The clearest possible facts have been concealed through the terminology of the warrant. That is wrong and it is the responsibility of this court to put it right."
Assange left court without comment and returned to Norfolk to continue his house arrest. A verdict is expected in around a month.
Outside High Court of
JusticeLondon
Julian Assange Extradition Appeal 12th July 2011
CIA Agent Marko watching all the proectors all day
Marko, a self confessed CIA agent
admitted to News of the World
reporter that the CIA were funding the extradition hearings of
Julian Assange
for the Swedish Government
Marko said 'I do not personally
like what the CIA are doing...'
but says,
"...I am just doing my job...."
News of the World
Read the full story of
News of the World and
why it closed.. at
The oldest Newspaper in the world Establish 1843...
to be continued
under new ownership ....
with the original staff..
why should the staff, the
News of the World readers
and general public
be punished for
the owners wrong doings? http://awn.bz/NewsofTheWorld_ClosedP1.html
Click here to find our why The Management of Edinburgh Fringe Festival and the Fringe Shows Have Talent Team are offering a 'Breath of Life' to the now closed News of the World and what was the real reason why the Murdochs closed down News of the World on a few days notice to the the creditors, debtors, staff and the readers of News of the World, and general public..
The Management of Edinburgh Fringe Festival and the Fringe Shows Have Talent Team are hoping to re-employ all the original straff, except those that are in jail, to help them run News of the World to make sure it lasts another over 150 years...
http://awn.bz/NewsofTheWorld_ClosedP1.html
Goodbye and hello again
from News Of The World
Hi!! I'm Mr Wijat! Welcome back to Mr Wijat's
News Of The World
Stay tuned for the adventures of
Mr Wijat WIJAT and his WIJAT Team
fighting for Just Truth and Justice and the British Way
Mr Wijat's INL News Limited UK not in any way connected to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., has given 'a Breath of Life' to
News of theWorld, with their new websites www.NOTW.bz and www.NewsOfTheW.bz
so to the 168 year old newspaer will not live on. Mr Wijat is keen to buy all of Rupert Murdoch's newspapers in Britain now Mr Wijat's arch enemy in the media world, 'Rupert the Bear' ,is finally keen to leave Britain and sell and his Britsh Newspapers, with headlines in British Newspapers like 'Brown's sick babies targeted by hackers' by John Higginson -London MetroTuesday 12th July 2011
who says:
" Journalists working for Rupert Murdoch's newspapers 'blagged' detaild of Gordon Brown's sich children, it was alleged yesterday. They obtained details from the medical files of Mr Brown's four month-old son, Fraser, showing he eas sufefreing from cystic fibrosis. They also attemoted to access the former prime minister's voice mail, his legal file and hisbank account, the latest reports show. The claims, involving, The Sun and the SundayTimes, suggested for the first time thatthe hacking scandal was spreading beyond the now-closed News Of The World. It also cast further serious doubt over Mr Murdoch's bid to obtan full control of BSkyB; yesterday the move was referred by ministrs to competition wtachdogs. Last night, Mr Brown ans h wife, Sarah, spoke of their sadness and shock at the 'level of criminality' used to prociure some of their children's most intimate details... The scandal, which erupted last week when it emerged that the News of the World had hacked the phone of murdered schollgirl Milly Dowler, took another dark twist with the latest allefations publish by the Guardian. In 2006, Sun editor Rebekah Brooks contacted the Browns to ell them they had detaild formRaser's mefical files, the paper claimed. Five years earluer, sensitive information about the couple's first child, Jennifer, who died at ten days old, also found its way to newspapers. The Sunday Times was also linked to an actor impersonating Mr Brown trying to get access to his Abbey National account and legal file. The claims were even more devistating to Mrs Brown who considered Mrs Brooks a friend and even organised her 40th birthday party in 2008. She said yesterday: 'So sad to learn about all I have about my family's provacy. It is really sad if true,' It is being cliamed that a royal protection officer was paid to provide the News of the World with information and phone numbers of memebrs of the royal family." ' Westminster goes to war on Murdoch..'
by Higginson, political editor of the
London Metr0 Wednesday 13th July 2011..who says:
" RUPERT MURDUCH'S 40 year grip on Britains's political system looks certian to be broken today when MP's of all parties join forces to halt the expnansion of his empire.
The media barrob will feel the backlash from the phon ehacking scandal when Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Labour MP's vot against him gaining control of BSkyB.
Their vote on a Commons motion may carry little legal weight but will send out a clear signal that his days as political kingmaker are numbered.
Labour leader Ed Milband, who put forward the motion said: 'There are times when thehouse of Commons has got to rise to the occasion and speak for the public.'
David Cameron's spokesman said 'the 80-year-old tytoon, whoe papers claimed the power to sway elections, should 'heed the will of parliament.'
The vote comes in a deeply damaging week for Mr Murdoch, beginning with the revelation that his News Of The World hacked the phone of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler.
On Monday, it emerged News International national titles targeted the medical records pf Gordon Brown's children...Amid the crisis, Mr Murdoch managed to halt the slide in News Corp's share price but mounted he would sell all his Britsh newspaper titles...."
If you have any issues, worries and/or problems
please email Mr Wijat and Mr Wijat's Weekend News Investigative Journalistic Action Team ....
WIJAT
at MrWijat@NOTW.bz
with a copy to MrWijat@gmail.com
Freedom of the Press:
'Everything is 'Freedom of the press' with you!
Julian Assange a great dissident, says his father
WikiLeaks founder's biological father, attending extradition hearing, tells of son's 'immense desire for justice in the world'
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange leaving the high court this week. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA
Julian Assange's biological father has described his son as a "great dissident" in what he said would be his first and probably only media interview.
John Shipton, who has been attending the Assange extradition hearing in London, spoke to the Spanish newspaper el País and confirmed that his son did not get to know him until his mid-20s.
"I have kept my mouth closed so as not to hinder things," said Shipton, whose name Assange used to register the Wikileaks.org domain name in 2006.
Shipton met Assange's mother, Christine, then aged 17, at an antiques shop on his way to a Vietnam war demonstration – which she joined. Little is known about the relationship, except that it had ended by the time of their son's first birthday – if not earlier. Christine then married theatre director Brett Assange.
Shipton told el País that he first got to know his son after Christine rang his Sydney home in 1996. Assange was 25 at the time. "It was extraordinary," Shipton said. "Certain of his thought processes made it seem like I was staring into a mirror. I could barely believe it. He had the same logic, the same intense curiosity, the same obtuse way of constructing sentences ... that never end."
That meeting coincided with, or came soon after, Assange's 1996 trial for computer hacking – where his lawyer talked of a "really quite tragic" nomadic childhood that saw him attend at least a dozen schools.
His mother became pregnant in her early 20s after she "effectively ran away from home" to Sydney, according to court documents used by Guardian journalists David Leigh and Luke Harding in their book WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War On Secrecy. The documents state that Shipton "never took up residence or if he did only took up residence for a very short time" and "had no contact with [Assange]".
Assange nevertheless later felt confident enough to use his father's name to register WikiLeaks' internet domain name, re-registering Shipton's nominal address in 2008 as Nairobi in Kenya.
Shipton had worried that his son was a modern Don Quixote. "At that time it seemed as though Julian loved tilting at windmills, but it turned out not to be like that." He warned Assange that he was setting himself tough, idealistic targets. "When someone tells you they want to turn the world upside down, you reply: 'OK, try it. But it's not that easy!'"
Shipton, who is believed to work as a freelance architect in Sydney, said Assange had inherited Christine's fighting spirit. "He is a great dissident, well-prepared for a new era in which direct action is practised via the internet."
He said his son's style of dissidence followed in the tradition of people like Che Guevara, Apollinaire or south American hero Simón Bolívar.
Shipton is convinced Assange is the victim of a conspiracy. "I think all this has been organised," he said, while adding that he did not want to hurt Assange's alleged Swedish victims with his words. "The intelligence agencies got involved in this business from the very start."
Assange's father apparently sees the US government behind the decision by Mastercard and Visa to prevent WikiLeaks accepting donations from their credit cards. "There is no separation between governments and finance," he said.
"There are many intelligent people in the world, but most seem to be wicked, while Julian seems to have the moral courage and ability to carry his vision through. He seems to have an immense desire for justice in the world."
Fighting extradition ... Julian Assange arrives at court. Photo: Reuters
Either some of the world's biggest secrets are passing through an Australian P.O. box or WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is taking a break from his transparency mission to court the celebrity lifestyle and fight his legal battle.
For the past year, the whistleblower site has been unable to receive leaked documents online after Assange's former right-hand man, Daniel Domscheit-Berg, took the organisation's encrypted submission system with him on his way out to start a rival site, OpenLeaks.
WikiLeaks has also shut down its online chat service designed to facilitate submissions so the only way leakers can blow the whistle is via snail mail: Australian PO Box 4080 at the University of Melbourne.
Advertisement: Story continues below
Supporters of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange outside the High Court. Photo: AFP
It's a decidedly low-tech approach from one of the world's best-known computer hackers. Emails sent to Assange's own personal address have also been bouncing.
Assange, who has to wear an electronic tag and report to police every day, has been busy fighting extradition to Sweden to face sexual misconduct claims. While under house arrest at a friend's mansion in Eastern England the Australian has been on a donation drive to pay for his legal fees and keep WikiLeaks running.
But despite spending the past seven months confined to a rural house Assange has not said when submissions will be re-opened. A notice on the website only says submissions will be accepted "in the near future" following "re-engineering improvements" designed to make the site "more secure and more user-friendly".
Last weekend Assange hosted a lavish 40th birthday party at the mansion he is staying in. The guest list reportedly included Oprah Winfrey, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Johnny Depp and US Vogue editor Anna Wintour, but none are believed to have turned up.
"You can charter a private plane to Norwich International Airport which has a private air strip and is a half-hour taxi journey from Ellingham Hall, or alternatively you can land helicopters on the Ellingham Hall property on the field in the north-west quadrant of this map," read the invitation to the bash.
The Guardian reported about 100 people attended the party in a massive marquee set up at the mansion but there were no reports of planes, helicopters or celebrities.
"Heading back to London after party in Norfolk. No sign of Branjelina or any helicopters," tweeted activist Ryan Gallagher, who attended the bash.
Fighting extradition
This week, Assange has been back in the high court in Britain fighting his extradition to Sweden to face claims he sexually assaulted two women. Assange argues the sex was consensual and has said the court case is a political smear by the US government.
In February Assange was ordered to return to Sweden by Senior District Judge Howard Riddle, who dismissed claims by defence lawyers that the extradition was without legal basis and would result in a violation of human rights.
Assange has appealed the extradition order in Britain's High Court, overseen by Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Ouseley, who on Wednesday heard a second day of argument over the detail of a European Arrest Warrant which alleges three counts of sexual assault and one of rape against two women on two separate occasions.
Assange has not been charged and denies the allegations, including that he deliberately broke a condom to have unprotected sex, saying that on each occasion sex was consensual and that Judge Riddle's extradition order was "wrong".
"If a woman chooses to spend the night in a single bed with a male, there is an inevitable possibility that she will come into contact with an erect penis at some time," barrister Ben Emmerson, QC, told the court.
Lawyers for Assange further argued that the extradition warrant fails to meet points of law, including that he is not named for prosecution, but instead simply wanted for questioning, which could be done by phone.
'They did not freely consent'
However prosecutor Clare Montgomery, QC, said that the warrant is valid and contains allegations capable of justifying criminal charges.
"Those charges as claimed are substantiated by probable cause," she told the court.
"With that as a factual background, your Lords would need evidential clarity of quite monumental proportions to displace what the (Swedish) prosecutor has complained about."
Comparing evidence in the arrest warrant to that detailed in a prosecution dossier and not yet made available to the court, Ms Montgomery said the particulars are essentially the same.
"In my opinion, when one does that (comparison) it is perfectly plain that what one is looking at is not only ... non-consensual, coerced sex .... but that that is clearly the only inference that can be drawn from the claimants," she said.
"They did not freely consent ... (but) were coerced either by physical force or after having been trapped into a position where they couldn't (refuse) and ... they let him continue.
"If what they say matters, they are clearly describing violent sex acts where there was no reason to believe consent had been granted."
Assange wanted to 'impregnate virgins'
Ms Montgomery accused Assange's lawyers of "19th Century conceptions of consent", adding that in contemporary law, consent to share a bed, or even engage in foreplay, does not translate to consent to have intercourse.
Furthermore, to Assange's desire to engage in unprotected sex, Ms Montgomery referred to a witness statement made by one of the complainants that: "(Assange) preferred virgins because he would be the first to impregnate them".
Mr Emmerson said the allegations needed to be considered in their entirety and not with the "socially desirable interpretations of consent" suggested by the prosecution.
Throughout this week's hearings Assange's legal team trialled a new approach and most notably has brought an end to Assange's long media conferences outside court which typically degenerated into rants about the failings of Europe's legal system.
On both Tuesday and Wednesday, Assange remained tight-lipped as he left court, although he gave the impression he was bursting to have his say.
Has the man who achieved global fame championing for freedom of speech himself been gagged?
The bench overseeing Assange's extradition appeal have reserved their judgment, to be handed down at a date to be fixed.
Book deal collapses
Meanwhile, the book deal for Assange's memoirs, which would've seen the Australian net £850,000, has collapsed because Assange feared the US government could use the details to extradite him to the US.
"I don't want to write this book, but I have to. I have already spent £200,000 for legal costs and I need to defend myself and to keep WikiLeaks afloat," he said when the book deal was first announced.
Bradley Manning, the 23-year-old US soldier accused of leaking confidential US embassy cables and other data to Assange, has been languishing in a military prison for the past year. He is awaiting a hearing to decide whether he will face a court martial.
While much attention has been focused on Assange, many are now turning to the plight of Manning, who has been profiled recently in both New York magazine and The Atlantic.
Manning was turned in by Adrian Lamo, a hacker who struck up a relationship with Manning online. The full logsof the online chats between Manning and Lamo that ultimately led to Manning's arrest were this week published by Wired.
European Arrest Warrant was issued on September 1.
Since then Assange, who is currently under house arrest in Norfolk, has been fighting extradition to Sweden over the allegations.
Ben Emmerson QC, representing Assange, said that consent was given in both cases, adding that SW had become captivated by Assange when she saw him on TV and that she had consensual sex with him while 'half asleep'.
Yesterday Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Ouseley reserved their judgment in the case.
Assange says the allegations against him are politically motivated and could result in him being extradited to the U.S., where the government was rocked by his website's mass leaking of diplomatic cables.
Julian Paul Assange (/əˈsɒnʒ/ə-sonzh; born 3 July 1971) is an Australian publisher,[4][5]journalist,[6][7][8] computer programmer and Internet activist. He is the editor in chief ofWikiLeaks, a whistleblower website and conduit for worldwide news leaks, with the stated purpose of creating open governments. Assange was a hacker in his youth, before becoming a computer programmer.[9] He has lived in several countries and has made public appearances in many parts of the world to speak about freedom of the press, censorship and investigative journalism.
Assange appealed a February 2011 decision by English courts to extradite him to Sweden for questioning in relation to a sexual assault investigation.[15][16][17][18] He said the allegations of wrongdoing are "without basis".[19] A two-day High Court hearing started on 12 July; he remains on bail.[20]
His biological father was John Shipton, and his mother Christine was the daughter of Scottish-born principal of Northern Rivers College, Warren Hawkins.[22][23] When Julian was one year old, Christine married theatre director Brett Assange, who gave him his surname.[2][24][25]Brett and Christine Assange ran a touring theatre company. His stepfather, Julian's first "real dad", described Julian as "a very sharp kid" with "a keen sense of right and wrong". "He always stood up for the underdog... he was always very angry about people ganging up on other people."[25]
Assange has asserted: "Capable, generous men do not create victims; they nurture victims." He says he is a combative person and that perhaps he is not so good at nurturing, but that "there is another way of nurturing victims, which is to police perpetrators."[26]
In 1979, his mother remarried; her new husband was a musician whom Julian Assange believed belonged to a New Age group calledSantiniketan Park Association led by Yoga teacher Anne Hamilton-Byrne. The couple had a son, but broke up in 1982 and engaged in acustody struggle for Assange's half-brother. His divorced mother fled her boyfriend across Australia, taking both children into hiding for the next five years. Assange moved 30 times before he turned 14, attending many schools, including Goolmangar Primary School from 1979 to 1983, sometimes being home-schooled.[2][27][28] In an interview conducted by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Assange stated that he had lived in 50 different towns and attended 37 different schools.[29]
Hacking and conviction
In 1987, after turning 16, Assange began hacking under the name "Mendax" (derived from a phrase of Horace: "splendide mendax", or "nobly untruthful").[2] He and two other hackers joined to form a group they named the International Subversives. Assange wrote down the early rules of the subculture: "Don't damage computer systems you break into (including crashing them); don't change the information in those systems (except for altering logs to cover your tracks); and share information".[2] The Personal Democracy Forum said he was "Australia's most famous ethical computer hacker."[30] The Australian Federal Police became aware of this group and set up "Operation Weather" to investigate their hacking. In September 1991 Mendax was discovered in the act of hacking into the Melbourne master terminal of Nortel, the Canadian telecommunications company.[2] In response the Australian Federal Police tapped Assanges' phoneline and subsequently raided his Melbourne home in 1991.[31] He was also reported to have accessed computers belonging to an Australian university,[2] the USAF 7th Command Group in the Pentagon[32] and other organisations, via modem.[33] It took three years to bring the case to court, where he was charged with 31 counts of hacking and related crimes. Nortel said his incursions cost them more than $100,000. Despite representing hacking as a victimless crime, he nonetheless pleaded guilty to 25 charges of hacking. Six charges were dropped. He was released on bond for good conduct after being fined A$2,100.[2][34] The judge said "there is just no evidence that there was anything other than sort of intelligent inquisitiveness and the pleasure of being able to—what's the expression—surf through these various computers"[2] and stated that Assange would have gone to jail for up to 10 years if he had not had such a disrupted childhood.[32]
Assange later commented, "It's a bit annoying, actually. Because I co-wrote a book about [being a hacker], there are documentaries about that, people talk about that a lot. They can cut and paste. But that was 20 years ago. It's very annoying to see modern day articles calling me a computer hacker. I'm not ashamed of it, I'm quite proud of it. But I understand the reason they suggest I'm a computer hacker now. There's a very specific reason."[4]
In 2011, court records revealed that in 1993, Assange helped the Victoria Police Child Exploitation Unit by providing technical advice and assisted in prosecuting persons.[35]
Child custody issues
In 1989, Assange started living with his girlfriend and they had a son, Daniel Assange.[36] They split up during the period of Assange's arrest and conviction. They subsequently engaged in a lengthy custody struggle and did not agree on a custody arrangement until 1999.[2][37]
The entire process prompted Assange and his mother to form Parent Inquiry Into Child Protection, an activist group centered on creating a "central databank" for otherwise inaccessible legal records related to child custody issues in Australia.[37] In an interview with ABC Radio, his mother explained their "most important" issue was demanding "that there be direct access to the children's court by any member of the public for an application for protection for any child that they believe is at serious risk from abuse, where the child protection agency has rejected that notification."[38]
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