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The move came after the Guardian revealed Rupert Murdoch's News Group Newspapers had paid out more than £1m to settle legal cases that threatened to reveal evidence of the journalists' activities.
The payments secured secrecy over out-of-court settlements in three cases that threatened to expose evidence that Murdoch journalists used private investigators to illegally hack into the mobile phone messages of public figures 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.
The suppressed legal cases are linked to the jailing in January 2007 of a News of the World reporter, Clive Goodman, for hacking into the mobile phones of three royal staff, an offence under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. At the time, News International said it knew of no other journalist who was involved in hacking phones and that Goodman had acted without their knowledge.
Scotland Yard and the Crown Prosecution Service now face serious questions over their handling of the inquiry into phone hacking and the News of the World, which led to the jailing of Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator who had worked for News Group.
The questions the police face include:
• Did Scotland Yard detectives find evidence that Mulcaire had hacked into the mobile phones of people other than the shortlist of those who were named when he and Goodman came to court?
• If so, did these targets include MPs and cabinet ministers; and why did Scotland Yard not inform all of those who appeared to have been targeted for hacking?
• Did the detectives find evidence that News of the World journalists other than Goodman were implicated in commissioning this hacking or handling the material derived from the hacking?
• If so, was all of that evidence presented to the Crown Prosecution Service; and why were no charges brought against any other News of the World staff?
• Did Scotland Yard attempt to investigate the role of other private investigators who have worked for the News of the World?
• Did anybody at any level of Scotland Yard or the Crown Prosecution Service interfere in any way to protect the interests of the News of the World and its parent company?
Stephenson said: "Clearly I am aware of this story and I think as everybody knows this relates to an investigation that the MPS [Metropolitan Police Service] undertook back in 2006. That investigation was undertaken by the Specialist Operations Directorate as it related very much to a matter of complaint from the royal household.
"I think we have got a track record of doing exactly what we are supposed to do. If we need to investigate, we will investigate. We will do the right thing and do what we have to do to investigate crime wherever it exists."
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