internal inquiry in 2007 gathered ‘‘smoking gun’’ emails showing that several of its journalists were hacking mobile phones and making payments to police officers.

The company is under mounting scrutiny following revelations that an internal inquiry in 2007 gathered ‘‘smoking gun’’ emails showing that several of its journalists were hacking mobile phones and making payments to police officers.
The evidence was only passed to the police last month, four years after it was collected. During that time, James Murdoch, European chief executive of News International, personally authorised at least one substantial settlement payment to a victim of phone hacking, in exchange for signing a gagging clause.
That has led MPs to accuse News International of a “cover-up on a massive scale” and of misleading Parliament. The latest twist in the scandal that forced the closure of the News of the World left Mr Murdoch and his allies fighting to prevent the affair doing further damage to the wider Murdoch media empire.
Despite the damage-limitation exercise, political pressure on the company continued to mount yesterday. In another blow to Mr Murdoch, there were signs that David Cameron, under pressure from Labour and his Liberal Democrat partners, is preparing to sanction a new and potentially damaging delay in News Corporation’s bid to take over British Sky Broadcasting. News Corp is News International’s parent company.
In other developments yesterday Rupert Murdoch, the chief executive of News Corp, flew in to handle personally the company’s response to the mounting revelations, and it was disclosed that Rebekah Brooks, News International’s UK chief executive, has contacted Scotland Yard detectives and offered to be interviewed as a witness rather than a suspect.

It also emerged that the family of Milly Dowler will this week meet Mr Cameron and demand an immediate public inquiry into the scandal.
The News International internal investigation is said to have involved around 2,500 emails from the accounts of News of the World staff.
They were assembled in 2007 by two News International executives, Daniel Cloke and Jon Chapman, after Clive Goodman, the tabloid’s royal editor, was jailed for phone hacking. The emails are said to implicate several of the paper’s staff in phone hacking and suggest that the practice was “more widespread than Clive Goodman”.
The suggestion that his company had evidence of phone hacking in 2007 has exposed James Murdoch to questions about his role in handling the affair.
In 2008, he signed off a compensation payment to Gordon Taylor, the head of the Professional Footballers’ Association, whose phone had been hacked.
In exchange for his payment, Mr Taylor signed a confidentiality agreement, forbidding him from discussing the matter.
For several years after Goodman’s conviction, James Murdoch and Mrs Brooks insisted that Goodman had acted alone and no one else at the company knew about phone hacking or other illegal activities. The company also made several statements to Commons committees to that effect, statements which now face intense scrutiny.
Tom Watson, a Labour member of the Commons culture committee, said Mr Murdoch and Mrs Brooks should be called to face MPs’ questions about the internal inquiry and when they knew about it. “It is a fantastical notion that only two people knew about this report and its incriminating emails,” he said.
“It is now clear that our committee was misled, which is why I am insisting that we invite James Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks to address us to put the matter right.’’
Chris Bryant, a Labour frontbencher, accused News International of “a massive cover up” and suggested that Mr Murdoch and Mrs Brooks could face legal sanctions from Parliament.
He said: “It is inconceivable that the senior management of News International did not know about this. It is quite clear that Parliament has been lied to.”
Mr Murdoch and Mrs Brooks cannot be compelled to speak to a select committee, but Mr Bryant suggested that MPs could summon them to the bar of the House for questioning, a sanction last applied in 1957.
“Parliament will have to address this issue of being misled,” Mr Bryant added.
“It is open for Parliament to summon someone to the bar of the house.”
A News International source said last night that Mr Murdoch and Mrs Brooks did not see the internal report until April this year, and now accepted that decisions like the payment to Mr Taylor were wrong.
The source added: “Once Rebekah and James became aware of the contents of the report they realised that some of the decisions they had made were based on the wrong information.”
The emails also suggest that Andy Coulson, a former editor who later worked for David Cameron, as his Number 10 communications chief, was aware of payments to police officers. Even now, not all of the 2,500 emails have been located.
Around 300 of them are understood to have been held by a London law firm asked to “review” them in 2007.
The company passed details of the investigation to Scotland Yard on June 20, leading to Mr Coulson’s arrest last week.
Mr Coulson, who denies wrongdoing, was released on police bail until October.

Former News of the World editor Andy Coulson has hired one of Scotland's top QCs, it has emerged.

It is understood Paul McBride QC has been approached by Mr Coulson.

Scottish police have been asked to look at evidence given by witnesses in the Tommy Sheridan perjury trial last year.

Mr McBride represented Gail Sheridan, the wife of the former Scottish Socialist Party leader, in the trial.

She was acquitted of lying to the courts in her husband's successful defamation action against the News of the World in 2006.

Sheridan was ultimately jailed for three years in January after being found guilty of perjury.

Mr Coulson testified, along with the editor of the Scottish News of the World Bob Bird and reporter Douglas Wight.

Mr Coulson, then Downing Street director of communications, told the trial in December that he had no knowledge of illegal activities by reporters while he was editor of the newspaper. He also claimed: "I don't accept there was a culture of phone hacking at the News of the World."

Strathclyde Police has been asked to make a "preliminary assessment" and report to the Area Procurator Fiscal at Glasgow for consideration of any further action. Police have also been asked by prosecutors to consider specific claims of phone hacking in Scotland.

Mr McBride was called at the Scottish Bar in 1998, at the age of 22 and became the youngest QC appointed in the UK at 35. He is one of the most highly regarded and highest-profile criminal lawyers in Scotland, and was involved in the Nat Fraser murder trial, the Moira Jones murder trial and the Rosepark fatal accident inquiry, as well as representing Celtic Football Club

Rebekah tried everything to stop the NotW staff having the last word and she utterly failed.

'Brook, criminal enterprise, catastrophe': How Rebekah's clueless proofreaders failed to spot parting shot in NotW crossword
Host of sardonic phrases printed despite Brooks ‘sending in Sun men’
Clues included: ‘Mix in prison’, ‘string of recordings’ and ‘woman stares wildly at calamity’ 
Answers counted: ‘Deplored’, ‘stench’, ‘stir’, ‘disaster’ ‘menace’, ‘desist’, ‘racket’ and ‘tart’
Final edition printed as nine journalists and three police officers face arrest

Aware that News of the World staff might use their final edition to fire a parting shot at her, Rebekah Brooks is said to have instructed two senior executives to read the paper with a ‘fine toothcomb’.

According to sources, they received the simple instruction to ‘ensure there were no libels or any hidden mocking messages of the chief executive’ of News International.

However, while the news pages may have been sanitised of any subliminal messages, the proofreaders appear to have failed to spot some less subtle jibes in the crossword section.


Crossword crossfire: The News of the World puzzle page appears to contain several parting shots at Rebekah Brooks and News International bosses despite two senior Sun journalists allegedly being asked to proofread it

Among the clues in the ‘Quicky’ puzzle were: ‘Brook’, ‘stink’, ‘catastrophe’, ‘digital protection’, ‘cease’, ‘lamented’, ‘servant’ and ‘prestige’.

The Cryptic Crossword was perhaps even more sardonic, with clues including: ‘Criminal enterprise, ‘mix in prison’, ‘string of recordings’, ‘will fear new security measure’.

Also among them was the hint ‘woman stares wildly at calamity’ – which may refer to the photograph of Mrs Brooks’s stony-faced departure from the News International HQ in Wapping, east London, on Thursday after staff were told the Rupert Murdoch-owned paper would be shut down.

Answers printed on page 47 counted: ‘Deplored’, ‘stench’, ‘stir’, ‘disaster’ ‘menace’, ‘desist’, ‘racket’ and ‘tart’.

Also there was ‘firewall’, which may have referred to the anger felt by NotW journalists after internet access was blocked by bosses for ‘operational reasons’.

A source at the paper told MailOnline: ‘Rebekah tried everything to stop the staff having the last word and she utterly failed.


Team: NotW editor Colin Myler brandished the final ever edition of the paper in front of his staff before announcing: 'And now in the best traditions of Fleet Street, we are going to the pub'


Emotion: One News of the World journalist proudly carries a memento  'splash' page specially printed for staff left, while another, wearing a T-shirt with the re-top's logo, cannot hold back her tears as she heads to the pub


Goodbye: The staff at the News of the World managed to smile through the pain as they gathered for a last picture in the newsroom today, with editor Colin Myler sitting on the left of the desk

‘She brought in two very senior Sun journalists to go though every line on every page with a fine toothcomb to ensure there were no libels or any hidden mocking messages of the chief executive.

‘But they they failed and we’ve had the last laugh.’

The apparent parting shot in print was made as editor Colin Myler led staff out to the pub after the NotW signed off after 168 years with the headline: 'Thank You & Goodbye'.

 
More...
DAVID DAVIS: Don't forget this was exposed by a rival paper - not any state organ
Goodbye World: Murdoch arrives to take control of crisis reading last edition of the first British paper he ever bought
Rebekah Brooks WILL face interview over hacking scandal while nine journalists 'could be jailed'
'I failed victims of hacking with c*** investigation': Yates of the Yard apologises over New of the World investigation
Blair 'tried' to hush up hacking scandal as whistleblower MP told: 'Rebekah Brooks will pursue you for the rest of your life'
'We are going to the pub': After 168 years, and 8,674 editions, the last ever News of the World is put to bed
Was anti-terror boss who failed to nail the News of the World compromised by these pictures?
Waiting TV cameramen and photographers captured the emotional scene as nearly 200 journalists walked out of Wapping and into an uncertain future.

Mr Myler, who has edited the paper since Andy Coulson’s regin ended in 2007, said: 'As you can see this is the latest and last News of the World.'

He went on: 'It is the 8,674th edition after 168 years. Its not a position that any editor would want, to close a title and, of course, I didn't close it.

'I want to pay tribute to these wonderful team of people here who after a very difficult day have produced a wonderful paper.

Tony Blair's spin doctor Alastair Campbell was barracked at the launch of the UK Huffington Post news website when he slammed the Press over phone hacking.

Tony Blair's spin doctor Alastair Campbell was barracked at the launch of the UK Huffington Post news website when he slammed the Press over phone hacking.

‘But you’re friends with Rebekah Brooks!’ said a heckler. 

‘I was,’ said shameless Campbell, who used Brooks for years to pump out pro-Blair propaganda.

Throwing Brooks to the wolves would leave media chief's son exposed to criticism for his role in the hacking affair

Following this week's dramatic decision by Rupert Murdoch to shut the News of the World, Rebekah Brooks is clinging to her job as chief executive of News International by her fingernails.

As the constant drip of revelations about the phone hacking scandal at the 'News of the World' turned into a torrent, the pressure on Rupert Murdoch to respond intensified. With the hacking affair threatening the future of his entire media empire, the previous policy of benign neglect was no longer an option.

Even so, when it came, Murdoch's response shocked even hardened media-watchers. While no one doubts the "Dirty Digger's" ruthlessness, closing the 'News of the World', the first UK newspaper he bought after moving from Australia to Britain in 1969, still took everyone, including the newspaper's unfortunate staff, totally by surprise.

The phone-hacking scandal has been a ticking time-bomb under the Murdoch empire ever since the 'News of the World's royal correspondent Clive Goodman and private detective Glen Mulcaire were charged with illegally intercepting -- or hacking, to use techie jargon -- mobile phone voice messages in January 2007.

That time-bomb finally detonated this week. When the allegations of hacking were first confined to the mobile phones of celebrities, the British public and their politicians refused to get exercised by the affair. The British public had always been partial to the 'News of the World's mixture of scandal and celebrity tittle-tattle, while politicians, mindful of the Mur doch press' capacity for retribution, also steered clear of criticising the 'News of the World'.

Everything changed when it emerged that the 'News of the World' had hacked the mobile phone of 13-year-old schoolgirl Milly Dowler after she was abducted in 2002. Even worse, messages had been deleted from her voicemail, raising the hopes of Milly's parents that their daughter, who was later found to have been murdered, might still be alive.

The wave of revulsion generated by the Dowler revelations turned into a tsunami when it became known that the 'News of the World' had also hacked into the voicemails of relations of those who had died in the July 2005 London bombings, family members of British soldiers who been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and possibly some of those associated with disappeared toddler Madeleine McCann.

While the number of phones hacked by the 'News of the World' has still not yet been definitively established, it certainly runs in to the thousands. This was hacking on an industrial scale.

Just when it seemed as if things couldn't get any worse for the 'News of the World', evidence emerged of massive payments by the newspaper to corrupt police officers in return for confidential information. Faced with such a barrage of evidence of systematic wrong-doing, even the Murdoch empire's traditional friends in the Conservative Party began to back away from the paper.

With Rupert Murdoch desperate to secure approval for his £7.8bn (€8.76bn) bid for the 61pc of satellite broadcaster BSkyB his News Corp doesn't already own, the decision was taken to close the 'News of the World' in an effort to save the bid.

In most normal companies, evidence of wrongdoing on the scale unearthed at the 'News of the World' would have long since have led to a complete clearout of the executives who presided over such a massive breakdown in ethical standards.

But of course, News Corp and its UK subsidiary News International are not normal companies.

Far from it. Ever since he inherited a handful of newspapers in the Australian city of Adelaide from his father Keith Murdoch in 1952, News Corp has been synonymous with one man: Rupert Murdoch. A steady stream of executives and family retainers have come and gone over the past six decades but only Murdoch has remained.

The total domination of News Corp and News International by Murdoch has dictated its response to the rapidly worsening phone hacking scandal. While Andy Coulson, who was editor of the 'News of the World' from 2003 to 2007 and deputy editor for three years before that, quit following the conviction and jailing of Goodman and Mulcaire, his predecessor Rebekah Brooks (nee Wade) has kept her job.

Not alone has she kept her job, she has been steadily promoted since the hacking of Milly Dowler's mobile phone.

In 2003, she switched from the 'News of the World' to become editor of its daily stablemate 'The Sun', the UK's best-selling newspaper. Then, in 2009, she was appointed chief executive of News International, a job that effectively made her the day-to-day boss of Murdoch's UK newspapers which, apart from the 'News of the World', also included 'The Sun', 'The Times' and 'The Sunday Times'.

Despite being the single most powerful person in the UK print media, Brooks is an intensely private person who has never given media interviews. Before this week's firestorm, her only significant media outing was in November 2005 when long-standing rumours of her explosive temper were spectacularly confirmed.

Following a hard day and night's partying with her then husband, TV actor Ross Kemp, the police were called to their London home after a full and frank exchange of opinions between the pair. Somewhat unusually for these situations it was Wade, as she was then known, rather than Kemp who was arrested and spent the night in police cells.

The couple separated shortly afterwards before divorcing in 2009. Later that year, Brooks married former jockey Charlie Brooks, with whom she now lives in considerable style in rural Oxfordshire.

Murdoch stood by Brooks following her 2005 arrest. However, no one expected him to spare her following this week's revelations.

Until the closure of the 'News of the World' was announced on Thursday afternoon, the general expectation was that it would be Brooks rather the 'News of the World' who would be thrown to the wolves. After all, she was editor of the paper when Milly Dowler's phone was hacked. Her claim that she was on holiday at the time, ie that it was all Coulson's fault, must rank up there with 'the dog ate my homework' as an excuse.

So why is Rupert Murdoch apparently so keen to protect Brooks? After all, he has never been shy of dispensing with underlings who have outlasted their usefulness in the past.

After decades of apparently defying time, Rupert Murdoch has recently aged rapidly, and now looks every one of his 80 years. His last great challenge at News Corp is to engineer the succession of his son James, the chairman of News International and Brooks's nominal boss.

The key to ensuring James Murdoch's succession was to have been the BSkyB takeover, with the thinking in News Corp apparently being that throwing Brooks overboard would leave James Murdoch exposed to criticism for his role in the affair. Far better to leave Brooks in place as a sort of human shield.

If that was in fact the case, then Rupert Murdoch miscalculated. With British Prime Minister David Cameron making it explicitly clear yesterday that he wanted Brooks gone, it is difficult to see how any British government can wave through the BSkyB takeover while she keeps her job.

The 'News of the World' may have been the first red-top that Rupert Murdoch has sacrificed. If this week's sensational events are any guide, it won't be the last.

 

registration by an unidentified party of the name 'Sun on Sunday' this week along with the domain name thesunonsunday.co.uk.

-U.K. newspaper publishing groups Trinity Mirror PLC (TNI.LN) and Daily Mail & General Trust PLC (DMGT.LN) are expected to benefit from the closure of the U.K.'s biggest selling newspaper, News of the World, as readers look for an alternative Sunday newspaper, media analysts said Friday.

Trinity Mirror's Sunday Mirror and People tabloid newspapers are expected to be the biggest beneficiaries as they compete directly against News Corp.'s (NWS) News of the World in the tabloid segment of the market, according to UBS analyst Alastair Reid.

Daily Mail & General Trust's The Mail on Sunday newspaper "will also benefit in our view, but to a lesser degree given its mid-market position," Reid added.

The News of the World tabloid newspaper had an advertising market share of 18.3% in 2010, according to Numis analysts, who also believe "the main beneficiaries" of the papers closure will be the Mail on Sunday which currently holds a 31.5% share, Trinity's Sunday Mirror with 14.7% and People with 9.1%.

Trinity Mirror and DMGT shares both rose Friday morning on the back of those expectations. At 0822 GMT, Trinity Mirror shares were up 11% at 48 pence, valuing the company at GBP137 million. DMGT shares were up 2.5% at 485 pence, giving it a market capitalization of GBP1.91 billion.

News Corp. said Thursday that it would close its News of the World newspaper following mounting allegations it intercepted voice mails of celebrities, murdered girls and terrorist victims in its pursuit of scoops. James Murdoch, News Corp.'s deputy chief operating officer, said Thursday that News Corp. had decided to close the 168-year-old Sunday tabloid because the allegations -- if true -- were "inhuman" and had no place in the company.

News of the World is the U.K.'s best-selling Sunday paper, with an average circulation of 3.7 million, according to analysis firm TGI Kantar Media UK. It is one of News Corp.'s four major U.K. newspaper titles, the others being the Sun, the Times and the Sunday Times.

News Corp. also owns Dow Jones & Co., publisher of this newswire and The Wall Street Journal

Daily Mail and Trinity Mirror weren't immediately available to comment.

A News International spokeswoman declined to comment on speculation that it would either start publishing the Sun newspaper on Sunday as a replacement for News of the World or set up a new Sunday tabloid. She also declined to comment on the registration by an unidentified party of the name 'Sun on Sunday' this week along with the domain name thesunonsunday.co.uk.

Rebekah Brooks last night told the News of the World's staff that she had no option but to close Britain's best-selling Sunday newspaper

Rebekah Brooks last night told the News of the World's staff that she had no option but to close Britain's best-selling Sunday newspaper because it had become a "toxic brand" because of the slew of phone-hacking revelations.

In a tense meeting held in high security on the 13th floor of Rupert Murdoch's Wapping headquarters, with News International's chief executive flanked by guards, and the company disabling the Twitter and email accounts of staff, Ms Brooks apologised to 250 employees and tried to defuse the fallout from her address to them 24 hours earlier, in which she had made the shock announcement that their paper was to be closed and they were losing their jobs.

Ms Brooks shared a platform with the NOTW's editor, Colin Myler, who positioned himself at a distance from her. Mr Myler addressed staff and received applause; Ms Brooks was greeted with silence and the occasional heckler

Rebekah Brooks: ‘Many people were quite scared of her.’

In 1997, when she was a 29-year-old feature writer on the News of the World, Rebekah Wade made a trip to Westminster to intercept the Conservative MP Jerry Hayes. The paper was planning to run an exposé of the married MP's affair with his 18-year-old lover, she told him – or as the headline would put it that Sunday: "TORY MP 2-TIMED WIFE WITH UNDER-AGE GAY LOVER".

Hayes was devastated, but found himself so charmed by the young redhead and the sympathetic manner in which she had delivered the news that he later phoned the News of the World to thank them for the way they had handled the story.

Three years later, Wade was the paper's editor. Less than a decade after that she was chief executive of Britain's most powerful newspaper group – a meteoric ascent attributed by close observers to this exceptional, potent cocktail of clear-eyed ruthlessness and dazzling charm.

It is a talent that even those who know or have worked for Rebekah Brooks – as she now is – describe in awed tones. "Andy Coulson often joked that the essence of tabloid journalism is turning someone over one day, and them ringing to thank you the next," recalls one ex-Sun staffer, who worked under both editors. "Rebekah Brooks is the ultimate exponent of that art."

On the evening of November 2, 2005, the day that David Blunkett had been forced to resign from government for the second time in a year, the former minister travelled to the Sun's offices in Wapping to share a drink with the paper's editor. The Sun, the previous year, had been the paper that named Kimberley Quinn, the Spectator's publisher, as Blunkett's lover.

But if such a talent can explain Brooks's meteoric rise, it does not explain the extraordinary tenacity with which she has clung to her job as News International chief – even while James Murdoch was forced to acknowledge "repeated wrongdoing" at the News of the World, admitted NI executives had misled parliament and abolished the biggest selling newspaper in the country. Can it really be the case, as Friday's Independent put it, that the News of the World has been "sacrificed to save one woman"? And if so, why?

The key to understanding Brooks, say those who know or have worked with her, is her breathtaking networking abilities. She is, says one, a "galaxy-class schmoozer. World-class doesn't quite do it justice." Certainly the briefest glance at her social circle reveals a network of establishment connections that few, if any, could match.

To describe her as a friend of David Cameron would be to underestimate their intimacy, say friends. Brooks and her second husband Charlie, a racehorse trainer and old Etonian, live very close to the Camerons in Oxfordshire. They met for dinner at least once over Christmas, and frequently see each other at weekends with what has been termed the "Chipping Norton set" – among them the PR man Matthew Freud and his partner, Murdoch's daughter Elisabeth, and Jeremy Clarkson. Brooks has even commented that unlike Murdoch senior she has no need to go to Downing Street for audiences with Cameron, since she sees him so frequently socially.

It is easy to forget that she was just as intimate with Cameron's predecessor, and the man at No 10 before that. Brooks, then Wade, was seen by many as half of a Labour power-couple, thanks to her then husband Ross Kemp's vocal support of the party and their close relationship with the Blairs. So intimate a friend did Cherie Blair consider her, in fact, that she reproached the then editor for attending a party at 11 Downing St, seat of the hated Browns. That cooled as her friendship with the Browns grew closer – Brooks attended a "sleepover" of female friends of Sarah Brown's at Chequers in 2008. Guy (now Lord) Black, ex-director of the Press Complaints Commission, and his partner, Mark Bolland, once Prince Charles's aide, were once holiday companions.

But Brooks's friendships are not only strategic, say intimates, who speak of her tremendously warm, conspiratorial, almost flirtatious manner. A number of former Labour ministers are still good friends, while she has maintained close relationships with, among others, Sarah Payne's family and Sheryl Gascoigne. Max Clifford, one of few willing to speak openly about her, said she was loyal, generous and "very genuine". "I have always found her to be a straight-up person. That is very, very rare in journalism."

Rebekah Wade was born in Daresbury, Cheshire in 1968 and attended Appleton Hall County Grammar school in Warrington. By 14, she had decided she wanted to be a journalist. She worked briefly for an architecture magazine in Paris, and her Who's Who entry states that she studied at the Sorbonne; in fact she took only a short course.

While still a teenager she joined Eddie Shah's short-lived tabloid daily the Post as features secretary. The Private Eye journalist Tim Minogue was one of her editors, and recalls a likeable, "skinny, hollow-eyed" girl who was "very, very, very ambitious".

On one occasion, Minogue recalls, the paper had run a promotion offering bottles of supposedly aphrodisiac lager from a brewery in Strasbourg, which for some reason had been held up.

"So Rebekah volunteered to drive to Strasbourg, a 20-year-old in a clapped out Renault 5 or something, load up her car and drive back. At the time we thought that was quite a funny story, but in retrospect it's quite telling about what she was prepared to do to get on."

After the Post closed Brooks joined the News of the World's magazine, where she caught the eye of the then editor, Piers Morgan, who promoted her so rapidly that very little of her career, according to those who worked with her, was spent in on-the-ground journalism. At just 29 she was made deputy editor of the Sun, and it is a mark of her tremendous confidence, some would say overweening chutzpah, that she was disappointed to be passed over the following year for the editor's job in favour of David Yelland. In 2000 Murdoch gave her the consolation prize of editing the News of the World.

Her stint there saw the paper expose Angus Deayton and Prince Harry's drugtaking, and Sophie Rhys-Jones for trading on her royal connections. But she will chiefly be remembered for the "Sarah's law" campaign, in which the paper began naming and shaming sex offenders until forced to stop after it provoked attacks on innocent people.

In 2003 she finally got the job she had coveted as editor of the Sun. Her first act, frustrating the hopes of her Labour friends, marked clearly that her loyalty was first to the Sun's legacy and her employers: Page 3 ran as usual was to run Page 3, featuring a model called "Rebekah, 22, from Wapping".

She had some notable successes, earning praise for reinjecting wit after Yelland's drier tenure, and scored a sensational scoop securing an advance copy of the Hutton report into David Kelly's death. But some of the attempts at populist humour were tone deaf. A splash about the boxer Frank Bruno being sectioned ("Bonkers Bruno Locked Up") provoked outrage, as did "Ship Ship Hooray!" after Harold Shipman's suicide.

A bizarre episode in which she spent a night in the cells after being arrested for attacking Kemp was treated with good humour, however. The editor came straight to the office from the cells, said: "Much happening today?", and promptly splashed on the story.

Her employees recall a woman who was respected and feared more than she was liked. "There was a lot of shouting, a lot more stress, when Rebekah was editor," comments one Sun staffer. "I think many people were quite scared of her." Some News of the World staff have tartly denied reports that Brooks was in tears as she delivered the news of their sacking on Thursday.

In September 2009 Brooks was elevated to chief executive by Rupert Murdoch. And it is this relationship, however powerful and intimate her other friends, that is the key to her story.

Murdoch has four daughters but regards Brooks as another, say observers, and perhaps the closest of the lot. The pair had a habit of going for swims together, and he has hosted birthday parties for her. For her 40th it is said he bought her a Lowry. When she was arrested for attacking Kemp, he sent a designer suit to the police station so she would look her best when she left. One story has Murdoch, told that the Sun had been scooped by an impressive Mirror story, phoning the former NI chairman Les Hinton to ask: "Is she all right?"

That concern has certainly been evident this week. News International staff may increasingly want her to stand down, parliament, the leader of the opposition and even her friend the PM may consider her position untenable. But Rupert Murdoch and James Murdoch believe Brooks's standard of ethics is "very good". And so, for the time being at least, she's going nowhere.

 

News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks has announced that she will no longer be in charge of its internal investigation into phone hacking

.

Brooks, who was editor of the News of the World at the time when a mobile phone that belonged to the murdered teenager Milly Dowler was hacked into, said in an email that executives carrying out the investigation will instead report directly to Joseph Klein, a New York-based senior executive at the company's owner, News Corp.

"People have asked if it is right for me, as CEO of News International and as the Editor of the News of the World until January 2003, to oversee our efforts to assess allegations, address serious issues and prevent them from happening again," she said in an email sent out to all of News International's departments.

"I'm determined that News International does this."

"For the avoidance of any doubt, however, the News Corporation independent directors agree with James Murdoch's recommendation that the Management and Standards Committee, comprised of Will Lewis, Simon Greenberg and Jeff Palker, report directly to Joel Klein in New York.

"Joel is leading and directing the company's overall handling of this matter."

She added: "James outlined the standards this company demands in his message to you yesterday. These standards apply to everyone, first and foremost to me as News International's chief executive."

Brooks, who has been under mounting pressure to resign following the Guardian's report about the Dowler hacking, again addressed News of the World staff today after yesterday informing them that the newspaper is to close this Sunday.

She told employees: "You may be angry with me, I understand, but I'm angry with the people who did this [hacking] and feel bitterly betrayed," Sky News reported.

In the email she sent out today, Brooks, said: "Yesterday was a day of great sadness for the News of the World and I know all of you felt deep sympathy for colleagues. I want the whole of the company to know and recognise the following things about colleagues at the News of the World."

Brooks said that the company will focus over the coming months on finding as many jobs as possible for the News of the World staff both within News International and the wider company.

"Retaining talent is very important and I have asked all the other titles to fill current vacancies with those from the News of the World where possible. No decision has been taken yet on any new publications or expanding existing ones. We will retain Fabulous which is a credit to everyone who has made it such a successful and award-winning magazine."

She said that all current staff will be paid for the next three months and that discussions over severance terms and "redeployment options" would begin on Monday with News International-backed staff association (Nisa)

In an apparent reference to a move yesterday by management to switch off access to Twitter and other social networking facilities available to News of the World staff, she added: "I would also like to apologise for any operational problems in the newsroom that are a direct result of our co-operation with the police."

She went on: "News International is not leading an investigation into itself because that could interfere with the work of the Metropolitan Police. What we are doing is assisting the police, who are entirely independent, with their work. We are all clear about one thing: the police will follow the evidence no matter where it takes them. The strongest action will be taken whenever wrongdoing is proven."

Joseph Klein is a former assistant attorney general of the United States. He and Viet Dinh, an independent director, are giving oversight and keeping News International's parent company's board advised , according to Brooks.

She added: "As a company we welcome the prime minister's calls for broad public inquiries into media standards and police practices. We are working hard to put our own house in order and do the right thing. Change and accountability will come through cooperating with criminal and civil inquiries and respecting due process during the tough times ahead."

Signing off her email with "Rebekah", Brooks concluded: "For this week, however, the News of the World staff have the toughest and most important job of all. I know they will produce a final issue that we will make us all proud.

New claims suggest that phone hacking is still going on

News International yesterday suffered a serious blow to its attempts to limit the phone-hacking scandal to events five years ago when it emerged that the News of the World is being accused of trying to access the voicemails of a celebrity within the last 12 months.

Court documents made public for the first time show that Kelly Hoppen, an interior designer and stepmother of the actress Sienna Miller, has lodged a claim against the Sunday paper and one of its reporters, Dan Evans, for "accessing or attempting to access her voicemail messages between June 2009 and March 2010".

The allegation was revealed as Tessa Jowell, the shadow Cabinet Officer minister, added to suspicions that hacking is not a historic problem by calling in Scotland Yard to investigate if an attempt had been made to hack into her phone messages as recently as last week.

 

Former royal editor Clive Goodman - who was jailed in January 2007 over the scandal - had been rearrested in connection with alleged payments to police

Former royal editor Clive Goodman - who was jailed in January 2007 over the scandal - had been rearrested in connection with alleged payments to police and Mr Coulson, the ex-Downing Street communications chief, is also being questioned over phone hacking during his time at the paper.
The 43-year-old ex-editor of the News of the World was held at a south London police station, sources said.
The arrest piles further pressure on the Prime Minister, who gave him a job at No 10 despite his association with the scandal.
The widely-anticipated arrest is the latest bombshell in a catastrophic week for News International chiefs, who announced they were shutting the Sunday tabloid because it had betrayed its readers' trust.
A Scotland Yard statement said: "The MPS (Metropolitan Police Service) has arrested a member of the public in connection with allegations of corruption and phone hacking. The man, aged 43, was arrested by appointment at a south London police station. He is currently in custody."
He was held by detectives investigating Operation Elveden - the inquiry into payments to police by the News of the World - and Operation Weeting, the long-running hacking investigation. After arriving by appointment at the station, he was held on suspicion of "conspiring to intercept communications" and "corruption allegations contrary to Section 1 of the Prevention of Corruption Act 1906".
Mr Cameron defended his decision to hire Mr Coulson and insisted his work for the Tories and in No 10 had not been a cause for concern.
"He resigned from the News of the World because of the things that happened on his watch. I decided to give him a second chance - and no one has ever raised serious concerns about how he did his job for me. But the second chance didn't work out and he had to resign all over again. The decision to hire him was mine - and mine alone - and I take full responsibility for it."
Plain-clothed officers carrying evidence bags arrived at Mr Coulson's detached home on Friday. The officers entered the property on the leafy residential street after a woman wearing a dark suit answered the door.

French prosecutors have started a preliminary inquiry into a writer's claim that former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn tried to rape her in 2003.

French prosecutors have started a preliminary inquiry into a writer's claim that former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn tried to rape her in 2003.

Detectives have been assigned to investigate the complaint lodged by Tristane Banon.

She says Mr Strauss-Kahn assaulted her in a Paris flat as she attempted to conduct an interview with him.

Separately, he denies charges of sexually assaulting a New York hotel maid on 14 May.

Mr Strauss-Kahn was recently freed from house arrest in the US city after the credibility of his accuser's evidence came into question.

It was shortly after Mr Strauss-Kahn was arrested in New York that Ms Banon came forward to say that he had tried to assault her eight years ago.

He responded by saying he would sue Ms Banon for making false statements.

Under French law, the charge of attempted rape carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in jail. However, the prosecutors' inquiry may not lead to formal charges.

'Wrestled'
Ms Banon - the god-daughter of Mr Strauss-Kahn's second wife, Brigitte Guillemette - has claimed that during the interview in 2003, Mr Strauss-Kahn said he would only speak to her if she held his hand.


French harassment claims increase
According to her version of events, she eventually had to fight him off as they wrestled on the floor and he undid her bra and pulled open her jeans.

"When I realised that he really wanted to rape me, I started kicking him with my boots. I was terrified," she said in an interview published in French weekly L'Express.

She said she had not pursued the case eight years ago because at the time, "everyone told me it would never succeed".

But she said that following the allegations in New York there was "perhaps a chance to finally be listened to".

"If I want one day to put an end to this hell that has lasted eight years, it needs to be tried in court," she added.

"I'm well aware that in these kinds of cases, where it's one person's word against another - without even mentioning people who are that powerful - suspects are often released."

Mr Strauss-Kahn had been a leading contender to be the French Socialist Party's presidential candidate before his arrest in May.

Ms Banon's mother, Anne Mansouret, herself a politician from Mr Strauss-Kahn's centre-left Socialist Party, said she had persuaded her daughter not to file a complaint at the time of the alleged incident.

But Ms Mansouret has said she is "revolted" by the gleeful reaction of many men in France to news the case in New York might fail.

 

Would a Good Father sacrifice his own son, as Rebecca Brook takes the sting from the closure of the News of the World.

 Dame Elisabeth Murdoch who turned 102 in February.She said she tells people: "I say, 'I am very proud of him because he's a good father and a good son.' And that's what I'm proud of. Not so proud of his wealth." Would a Good Father sacrifice his own son, as Rebecca  Brook takes the sting from the closure of the News of the World.

Australian-born media mogul Rupert Murdoch built an empire on lurid headlines, but the hacking scandal which has felled one of his top tabloids is the biggest controversy of his career.

Murdoch took the explosive step of killing off his 168-year-old News Of The World on Thursday after a furore in Britain over claims the paper hacked phones of relatives of murdered children and victims of the London bombings.

The media baron, 80, had condemned as "deplorable and unacceptable" the claims, but the decision by a man said to have "newsprint in his veins" to close the scandal-hit Sunday title was completely unexpected.

Murdoch's purchase of the News of the World in 1969 gave him a high-profile foothold in the British market. He went on to buy The Sun, which he turned into a popular tabloid, resulting in a massive rise in circulation.

The consequent boost in profits helped finance his 1981 purchase of The Times and Sunday Times, both prestigious broadsheets, in an acquisition that met with intense opposition from parts of Britain's establishment.

The takeover's eventual approval, however, turned him into Britain's most powerful press proprietor.

The renowned dealmaker has, from a single Adelaide afternoon paper, built a media empire with interests stretching from Australia to Europe, the United States, Asia and Latin America.

Observers of the billionaire father-of-six, who has steered his News Corp. through many dramas in an eventful career, say he has plenty of life left in him.

"Anyone who is looking forward to Rupert's retirement will be very disappointed. Rupert, far from winding down... he's winding up," Australian author and journalist Hugh Lunn said ahead of his 80th birthday in March.

"He is getting bigger - it shows you what you can still do even when you're in your eighties," said Lunn, who worked for Melbourne-born Murdoch for 17 years.

The closure of the News of the World, however, threatens to derail his bid to take full control of satellite broadcaster BSkyB, with the British government under pressure to delay approval of what would be Murdoch's biggest deal yet.

Born into a patrician family headed by his newspaper proprietor father, Sir Keith Murdoch, he is reviled by critics who deride his politically conservative dominance of the global news market and blame him for the excesses of tabloid media.

But he is revered by many of his staff and respected by opponents. Acquisition and expansion, and a formidable capacity to manage debt, as well as a willingness to win battles, have characterised his career.

In the 1980s, he fought a bitter industrial dispute over his decision to move his papers from their traditional home in Fleet Street to new headquarters in Wapping where electronic production allowed him to slash staff.

Murdoch has always moved around the world to be near his business interests. From Britain, he relocated to the United States where more bold acquisitions followed and where he became a naturalised US citizen in 1985.

By 2010, his News Corp. boasted assets of US$57 billion and annual revenues of about US$33 billion across its television, book publishing, Internet and newspaper businesses, including conservative US media outlets such as Fox television and the Wall Street Journal.

Murdoch, three-times married, has never diversified out of the media business and is seen as a newsman at heart, favouring big-selling tabloids over broadsheets.
The media proprietor has always surprised, and is noted for a tendency to turn up unannounced in his offices around the world.

"He turns up unexpectedly at your desk," Lunn said. "And Rupert asks you questions... or else he says, 'What's the circulation of your opposition paper?'"

Murdoch is undoubtedly the biggest media name in his home country. He launched The Australian, the country's first national title in 1964, and dominates newspapers, Internet and cable television.

His Australian arm, News Limited, was at pains to distance itself from the hacking scandal Friday, issuing a statement to staff stressing that such behaviour was "the antithesis of everything we stand for."

Speaking in the Senate on Thursday, Bob Brown called on Communications Minister Stephen Conroy "to investigate the direct or indirect ramifications to Australia of the criminal matters affecting the United Kingdom operations of News International

Speaking in the Senate on Thursday, Bob Brown called on Communications Minister Stephen Conroy "to investigate the direct or indirect ramifications to Australia of the criminal matters affecting the United Kingdom operations of News International

The leader of Australia's Green party has called on the government to investigate Rupert Murdoch's extensive media holdings in Australia.

Party leader Bob Brown, a senator, urged the inquiry following fresh revelations in the UK over the News of the World phone-hacking scandal.

The Murdoch-owned paper is accused of hacking into the phones of crime victims, celebrities and politicians.

Mr Brown said the potential for similar activity in Australia should be probed.

'Prudent'
Prime Minister Julia Gillard relies on the Greens to keep her minority Labor government in power.

Speaking in the Senate on Thursday, Bob Brown called on Communications Minister Stephen Conroy ''to investigate the direct or indirect ramifications to Australia of the criminal matters affecting the United Kingdom operations of News International''.

News International runs Mr Murdoch's UK newspapers, including the News of the World, The Sun, The Times and The Sunday Times.

On Thursday, News International shut down the News of the World following a spate of fresh revelations.

Speaking later to Reuters news agency, Mr Brown said: "We have the most Murdoch media ownership of any country in the world with eight of the 12 metropolitan dailies owned by the Murdoch empire.

"I think that it's just prudent to take a raincheck at this stage, because the events unfolding in London are so serious, and it would be irresponsible for us not to look at the potential for similar operations to have occurred in Australia," he said.

Rupert Murdoch was born in Australia and founded his international media empire there.

His interests include The Australian, The Daily Telegraph and a 30% stake in Sky News Australia.

Sky is bidding to run a government-funded international TV service currently operated by ABC.

Earlier this week, the government extended the deadline for the contract to be awarded.

BSkyB shares tumble again

Shares in BSkyB plunged on Friday as culture secretary Jeremy Hunt warned it would take "some time" to reach a decision on whether to allow Rupert Murdoch to take full control of the satellite broadcaster and added he would be taking advice from Ofcom and the Office of Fair Trading.

A day after Murdoch sought to draw a line under the phone hacking scandal by announcing the closure of News of the World - while keeping its previous editor Rebekah Brooks in her current position as chief executive of News International - David Cameron added to the growing number of calls for Brooks's resignation, suggesting the saga still has a long way to run.

If Brooks had offered her resignation "I would have taken it," Cameron said, adding that "the police must feel they can go where they need ... and question everyone to get to the bottom of this."

Shares in BSkyB crashed 47p, or 5.8%, to 765p on Friday morning, taking their total decline this week to 10%, a drop that has wiped about £1.4bn off the value of the business.

The owners of rival publications such as the Sunday Mirror and the Mail on Sunday saw their stock jump, as analysts predicted they would gain readers and advertisers left behind by the demise of News of the World. Shares in Trinity Mirror, owner of the Sunday Mirror and the People newspapers, soared by more than 10% to 53.35p, while stock in the Daily Mail & General Trust increased by as much as 3% to 492p.

Alex DeGroote, an analyst at Panmure Gordon, said: "The opportunity for Trinity Mirror is much improved market share of circulation and advertising. In terms of demographic, the Mirror titles are arguably much closer to the News of the World, and there is conceivably 2.6m circulation up for grabs."

News Corporation, where Murdoch is chairman, wants to acquire the 61% stake in BSkyB it does not already own. Analysts say the move will eventually yield far more profit than the money that the media mogul had been making from the News of the World.

DeGroote said: "The probability of a successful deal is now much reduced. Previously, we would have estimated a 90%-plus chance of a deal getting approval, and completing in the near term. Now the probability can be no more than 50%, and the time-line is likely to be drawn out."

The threat to the BSkyB deal has rattled BSkyB shareholders, who fear the government or regulator might now kick the proposed transaction into the long grass.

Their fears intensified on Thursday when Hunt said he would take "several weeks" to review the 100,000-plus submissions he has received on the deal – meaning that any further decision on the £8bn Murdoch merger is unlikely to be made until September.

In a statement this morning, a spokesman for Hunt said: "The Secretary of State has always been clear that he will take

as long as is needed to reach a decision. [He] will consider carefully all the responses submitted and take advice from Ofcom and the Office of Fair Trading before reaching his decision.

"Given the volume of responses, we anticipate that this will take some time. He will consider all relevant factors including whether the announcement regarding the News of the World's closure has any impact on the question of media plurality."

Sacrifice

Louise Cooper, market analyst at BGC Partners, said: "By sacrificing the News of the World (rather than the other redhead Rebekah Brooks) Rupert Murdoch has shown us how keen he is to own BSkyB. Although quite clearly the future of a global media empire is not in newspapers (the 22-year-old sitting next to me gets his news online as do all his mates), it must have been a painful decision to close down the most successful British Sunday paper. The financial impact of closure on News Corp is minimal. Not though for it's competitors – Trinity Mirror shares up 10% today to be up 26% this week and Daily Mail and General Trust up 3% today and up 10% off recent lows, on hopes their circulation and advertising revenue will be boosted by the competitor's closure."

The biggest concern for shareholders was a statement from Ed Richards of the regulator Ofcom, which said its "fit and proper test" to ensure that media groups adhere to high standards of behaviour, was "an ongoing duty ... that is not linked to any particular event, merger or transaction. It's a generalised duty." However, he made it clear that there was no question of intervention until police investigations were completed.

BSkyB's shares were worth just 600p before Murdoch launched his bid to take full control of the company in June 2010, and City traders believe that the share price will remain above 800p unless the takeover is blocked. A lengthy delay, though, will hit asset management firms and hedge funds who have bought shares in BSkyB over the last year in the expectation of guaranteed profits this summer.

"Many hedgies and arbitrageurs are bailing out because they don't want to tie up funds when there is uncertainty linked to their investment," said one trader.

Before the crisis broke, some BSkyB investors were pushing News Corp to raise its bid from 700p, with analysts saying Murdoch will have to pay a minimum of 850p and possibly up to 950p.

Richard Greenfield, an analyst at the US broker BTIG, said: "American investors are frustrated because the latest developments indicate further delays and uncertainty."

Greenfield said Wall Street was betting News Corporation's acquisition of BSkyB would happen and that if the News of the World scandal prompted Murdoch to review his investment in the newspaper industry, "all well and good".

A 'sunset industry'

He added that Murdoch's other media interests in cable television – Fox News and his numerous other operations – are far more valuable in the eyes of investors than his newspapers. He said: "Many of us believe newspapers are a sunset industry and wouldn't give a damn if Murdoch decided to get rid of them."

Analysts at the investment bank Nomura suggested the UK newspaper business could be more trouble than it was worth for Murdoch: "Perhaps ironic is the fact that the least-valued division of the corporation by investors is creating the most negative headlines."

In a question in the House of Lords, shadow leader of the house, Lady Royall, called for a delay "in the light of the loss of public and commercial confidence in News International", the News of the World's parent company.

BSkyB shares can be found in virtually all UK pension funds, which has sparked campaigners to call for action in the City.

Louise Rouse, director of engagement at FairPensions, a charity that promotes responsible investment by fund managers, said: "Pension investors should seriously consider whether the takeover of BSkyB by News Corp is in the long-term interests of their beneficiaries. We believe these interests extend beyond the price paid for BSkyB shares to include broader social issues like media plurality in this country."

 

Rebekah Brooks The Perfect Scapegoat Who Is Being Used As The Shield To Save Rupert Murdochs Son From Prosecution

 .Father and son relationship that sealed the fate of the News of the World and ultimately the News Empire from disaster.
Prime Minister David Cameron has said he would have let Rebekah Brooks quit as chief executive at News International. 
Mr Cameron says he did not think it was for politicians to dictate who should or should not run news organisations.
But he added: "It has been reported that she [Brooks] has offered her resignation over this and in this situation, I would have taken it."
The Prime Minister counts Mrs Brooks, who used to edit the News Of The World, as a friend and she lives near his Oxfordshire home.
Until now, Downing Street has refused to comment on the fate of individuals and insisted it was a matter for News International.
But Mr Cameron called a press conference in the wake of the sensational closure of the News of the World to respond directly to the scandal.Rupert Murdoch's son and heir to his media empire has sensationally admitted that News International misled Parliament over the phone-hacking scandal.

In an email to staff explaining the momentous decision to close the News of the World, James Murdoch admitted the Sunday paper's publishers had knowingly covered up the controversy.

He said the paper had 'wrongly maintained' that phone hacking was carried out by just one reporter, and said it was 'a matter of serious regret' that he had approved out-of-court settlements with victims of the practice.


Confession: James Murdoch leaves New International's HQ yesterday after closing the New Of The World with an email that admitted he misled Parliament


Father and son: James Murdoch and father Rupert, pictured at Cheltenham Festival last year, have come under immense fire for the phone-hacking scandal

Publicist Max Clifford, actress Sienna Miller and Professional Footballers' Association chief Gordon Taylor are among those to have received payments.

Mr Murdoch’s extraordinary confession - which comes a day after an MP used Parliamentary privilege to claim that News International had ‘entered the criminal underworld' - could have legal repercussions amid speculation that his executives could face an investigation for perverting the course of justice.

The statement made no reference to former News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks - now chief executive of News International - who faces repeated calls to quit.

 
James Murdoch announces phone hack scandal paper will shut down this Sunday - but Rebekah Brooks survives
A lynch-mob mentality: Rebekah Brooks faces fury and tears as she announces 'you're all out of a job but I'm not'
'Wrongdoers turned a good newsroom bad': James Murdoch's statement in full that heralded the end of NotW
BSkyB shares slide again as City wavers over prospects for News Corp bid
Privately, a number of journalists accused Mr Murdoch of being a coward for not addressing staff personally.

But in an interview with Sky News, the aspiring media mogul defiantly insisted that Mrs Brooks had no reason to step down - saying her 'leadership was the right thing'.

Mr Murdoch, 38, who is chairman of News International, used fewer than 1,000 words to explain to staff why the News of the World was closing after 168 years.

‘The good things the News of the World does have been sullied by behaviour that was wrong,’ he said. ‘Indeed, if recent allegations are true, it was inhuman and has no place in our company.

'I hope he is marrying her for love': Socialite warns Petra Ecclestone of her future husband's past

She's the ultimate daddy's girl - the stunning daughter F1 billionaire Bernie Ecclestone bought a £56m house in Chelsea AND a £91m LA mansion.

This summer she's set to marry a little-known businessman with a string of glamorous and wealthy exes.

So what does model and friend Jasmine Lennard have to say about Mr Ecclestone's future son-in-law?

When they marry in August, Petra Ecclestone and James Stunt will become one of London’s highest-profile, not to mention stupendously wealthy, couples.

After a no-expenses-spared ceremony in the Mediterranean, the newlyweds – whose £56million Grade II listed house in Chelsea is currently being renovated – will start married life by moving into The Manor, a 123-room super-mansion in Los Angele built by the late TV producer Aaron Spelling and bought by the bride’s father, Formula 1 mogul Bernie Ecclestone, for £91million.

Ecclestone, the son of a Suffolk fisherman, is said to have given the match his seal of approval and marked the couple’s engagement with a sumptuous party for 300 guests at Battersea Power Station in May.

The night reached its climax when pop star Rihanna performed a surprise set – for a reported £250,000 fee.

As the youngest daughter of 80-year-old self-made billionaire Ecclestone and his ex-wife Slavica, a Croatian former Armani model, 22-year-old Petra’s social pedigree is in no doubt.


Petra Ecclestone and James at their engagement party

After all, this is a woman who counts collecting £10,000 Hermes handbags as a hobby, lists Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie as close friends and is set to inherit a sizeable chunk of her father’s £2.5billion fortune.

But far less is known about the man she will marry, 28-year-old businessman Stunt, who proposed to Petra in March and has been living with her in a seven-storey townhouse in Eaton Square, Belgravia, since 2007.

One woman who does know Stunt, however, is model and former socialite Jasmine Lennard.

The 25-year-old daughter of Seventies Bond actress Marilyn Galsworthy and her ex-husband, Sacha Shoes founder Brian Lennard, was at college with Stunt and knew him over a three-year period.

She recalls their friendship as close, although he now describes it as merely ‘hanging out’.

According to Jasmine, a reality-television star who has dated former Manchester United footballer Cristiano Ronaldo, Stunt is a serial ladies’ man and ambitious social climber who has used his charm and guile to springboard his way from one super-rich girlfriend to another.

Jasmine said: ‘When I see James with Petra I just think, “He must believe he’s hit the jackpot.”

‘I am not bitter – I wish him all the best and I really hope he is marrying her for love.’

 
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Jasmine met Stunt when they were studying at London’s exclusive Mander Portman Woodward private sixth-form college in South Kensington.

‘When I met James, I was 17 and he was a couple of years older. He looked very different from how he does now.

He has put on a lot of weight, but back then he was very skinny, almost undernourished, and weighed about nine-and-a-half stone. He was very handsome.


James with Petra and her father Bernie Ecclestone at Sandown Park in Surrey

‘James is incredibly charming and is very flattering. Every girl to him is ‘‘Princess’’ or ‘‘Baby’’. He could charm a nun into bed.

‘With me, he used to play Westlife CDs in his car and sing along to them, even though he can’t sing. Eventually, I gave in and agreed to go out with him.

‘James was obsessed with gangster films – his favourite film was Scarface. He hated his slight build and was desperate to try to build himself up.

‘Image is very important to James. His skin was bright orange because of all the fake tan he wore, which left his towels and bed linen stained orange too.

‘In the past few years, he has bulked out because of his lifestyle.’
Stunt grew up in a £1.8 million house in Virginia Water, a Surrey village at the heart of the stockbroker belt and a mile from the Wentworth Estate, home to multi-millionaires including Sir Bruce Forsyth and where Stunt’s parents, Geoffrey and Lorraine, still live.

The family also own a luxury two-bedroom apartment in the exclusive Chelsea Harbour development, bought, according to records, in 1999 for £600,000 but now believed to be worth well over £1 million.

It’s certainly not a lifestyle to be sniffed at. But the family’s wealth is a drop in the ocean alongside that of the Ecclestones – and therein, according to Jasmine, lies the rub.

Jasmine, a full-time mother to ten-month-old son Phoenix, says it quickly became clear after their relationship started that Stunt was a man who wanted the best from life – and was prepared to do whatever it took to get it.

‘Ever since I have known him, he has surrounded himself with the sons and daughters of wealthy people.

‘He had a very wealthy upbringing – his family certainly weren’t poor. But he was mixing with people who were millionaires several times over and he couldn’t compete. He once jokingly told me he’d bought a title, so he could call himself a marquess. I remember how excited he was the day his credit cards arrived embossed with his new title.


Jasmine, pictured age 18, a contestant in Five reality show Make Me A Supermodel

‘You only have to look at his history to understand what James is about. He went out with Camilla Al Fayed, daughter of Harrods boss Mohamed Al Fayed, and was friends with pop star Lily Allen.’

Despite his meteoric rise up the social ranks, Jasmine says Stunt has left a trail of heartbreak in his wake. ‘That man has been on dates with half of London. If I had to put a figure on it, I would say he has dated hundreds of girls.’

Not exactly what most prospective fathers-in-law want to hear about the man about to marry their daughter. But despite his former playboy lifestyle, Stunt is said to get on well with Bernie, whom he approached for permission to marry Petra before he proposed in March.

Like Bernie – whose favourite meal is egg on toast with brown sauce – it seems Stunt, who has described himself variously as a businessman and a wine collector, is a man of simple but very particular tastes.

‘James was a real mummy’s boy when we were together and I don’t think that’s changed,’ says Jasmine. ‘He has what you would call very exacting standards. Everything has to be done his way.

‘His favourite meal is chilli con carne – but I had to cook it following his mother’s recipe precisely.

‘He would only drink Lucozade, and his other vice was gold chocolate coins, which I had to bring him when I saw him.

‘James needs a lot of attention. He was obsessed with germs. All of his cutlery had to be washed twice and he would inspect it afterwards.’

Despite the enormous wealth he is marrying into, it seems teetotal Stunt’s interests also remain resolutely down-to-earth.

He and his sylph-like bride-to-be apparently like nothing more than a night in on the sofa watching at least an hour of television – including their favourite programme, BBC soap EastEnders.

It’s a far cry from Stunt’s days on the partycircuit with Jasmine, when he was a regular at nightspots such as Tramp, Boujis and Movida and drove a yellow Lamborghini with the number plate S7UNT.

‘He had a regular table at Tramp straight in the door and on the left,’ Jasmine recalls. ‘On the right would be (heiress) Lisa Tchenguiz and other regulars were the Reubens – the billionaire Jewish family from North London – and they would engage in ‘‘champagne wars’’ to see who could order the most bottles.


Petra and Bernie attend a party in London

‘He liked to be the centre of attention, and every time he ordered another magnum of Cristal, the club manager, Guido, turned the music off and played the Rocky theme tune while the bottle was delivered with sparklers so everyone would watch. All eyes had to be on James.

‘The champagne was rarely drunk because it was all about the show.
‘If he wasn’t in nightclubs, he would be in the casino, usually Aspinalls or Crockfords, a private members’ club in Mayfair.

‘He would be with friends who would spend £250,000 in one turn on the baccarat table. I went to his flat one day and found him lying on a bed of gambling receipts after a bad night of losses.

‘On the flip side of all this wealth, James had an obsession with gangsters and the East End underworld. He loved EastEnders because of the way it portrayed the East End. He affected a cockney accent from watching the soap and claimed to be related to the Richardsons (a notorious London criminal family).

‘He liked to flit between speaking in a cockney gangster’s voice to cut-glass English, depending on who he was talking to.’

Despite his high-rolling lifestyle, Jasmine says it was never clear exactly how Stunt earned an income. Jasmine, who lives in a £500,000 flat in Fulham, West London, and who found fame on reality TV show Make Me A Supermodel in 2005, recalled: ‘I asked him what he did but it was never completely clear.

‘Sometimes he would say it was stocks and shares, then he was supposed to be running a betting firm.

‘James surrounds himself with people who have money and he never went short. But in the time we were together, I don’t think he ever bought me anything.

‘James can be very persuasive. That’s his skill and I believe that’s how he has got to the point he is now. When we were together, he convinced me to buy him a £400 Bulgari bracelet. He said he had to have it, and I am embarrassed to admit it now but I stole my mother’s credit card to pay for it.

‘Later, he dated Camilla Al Fayed for a year. She helped him choose stuff to buy for the apartment. After they split, I visited him and there was a new sofa, new rugs and all the pictures were in silver frames.

‘It was the first time we talked as friends as we laughed about how the whole place had been “Harrodised”.

‘Many of the people in his circle were the wealthy sons and daughters of rich and successful people. Often their parents lived abroad and they lived in London, so they had access to a lot of money.

‘James would befriend them and invite them out. He could get them in to the places they wanted to go.’

These days it’s Stunt who is in charge of the purse strings as he prepares to marry into one of the world’s richest families.

He is now keen to demonstrate spending his money on more philanthropic causes. At Elton John’s White Tie And Tiara Ball, he bid £250,000 in a charity auction for a car, then promptly gave the car back to be sold again.

And as the countdown to the big day begins, it seems only fair to give the last word to the one that got away.

‘Nothing would surprise me about James. He always said he wanted to be known, and called himself ‘‘the most famous unfamous person in London’’,’ says Jasmine.

‘I just never thought the cost of finding that fame would be £91 million. I wish them both the best of luck, I really do. But rather her than me.'

A spokesman for Mr Stunt said yesterday: ‘James attended the same sixth-form college as Ms Lennard but he had no wish to keep in touch with her.

‘He does not recognise her account of those days in any way. He has been with Petra Ecclestone for five years.

‘They are completely in love with each other and looking forward to sharing the rest of their lives together.’

 

The “unrepentant” leader of a gang of organised criminals has today (June 24) been hit with the longest-ever jail term for waste offences, the Environment Agency has announced.

The “unrepentant” leader of a gang of organised criminals has today (June 24) been hit with the longest-ever jail term for waste offences, the Environment Agency has announced.

Hugh O’Donnell, 64, along with two accomplices was arrested by environmental crime officers and police following a three-year investigation into operations at his illegally-operated landfill site at Aldermaston near Reading.


The offences related to the operation of a large-scale illegal waste landfill site at Aldermaston near Reading
The landfill was ranked as one of the highest risk and highest priority illegal waste sites in South East England.

Sentenced in Isleworth Crown Court, Mr O’Donnell was given a four-year jail term for money-laundering and 22 months for waste offences, which are set to be served concurrently. Mr O’Donnell previously served six months in jail for waste offences and non-payment of fines.

The so-called “crime boss” had been released from prison yesterday (June 23) after serving four-and-a-half years for possession of an illegal firearm.

Mr O’Donnell’s accomplices, Robert Evans and Peter Lavelle, were also sentenced, with Mr Evans set to serve a total of two years in prison for money-laundering and Mr Lavelle to serve 18 months for the same offence. Both were also given 14 and 12 month sentences, respectively, for waste offences, which will be served concurrently.

Offences

The offences related to the operation of the Aldermaston landfill site, which was raided by the Environment Agency and Thames Valley Police in October 2008. The raid uncovered unlicensed handgun and ammunition, other weapons, stolen vehicles, plant equipment and over £5,000 in cash.

Speaking in court, Judge Edmunds QC said: “This was deliberate, calculated offending on an industrial scale…for profit. You carried on in the teeth of attempts to stop you, and with the clear intention of making as much criminal profit as you could before you were stopped.”

Judge Edmunds added that the trio had been “dismissive and obstructive” with regards to their interaction with the enforcement authorities.

Activity had stopped at the Aldermaston site in late 2008 following Mr O’Donnell’s arrest for possession of an illegal handgun. However, Mr Lavelle and Mr Evans were said to have been used by Mr O’Donnell to take over the day-to-day running of the site and operation of “phoney businesses”.

Agency

Angus Innes, principal solicitor for the Environment Agency, said: “O’Donnell’s illegal waste business netted millions of pounds in profit by taking skips or lorry loads of construction and demolition waste into the Aldermaston site to be dumped in an illegal landfill.

“This sentence sends out a message that waste crime is a serious offence and you can and will be sent to jail.”

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Environment Agency

Mr Innes added that the three-year investigation had been one of the “biggest and most complex” ever undertaken by the Environment Agency.

It involved the use of forensic techniques such as DNA, handwriting analysis, smartwater tracking, fingerprinting and mobile phone and laptop interrogation.

The Environment Agency said it would now be seeking a Proceeds of Crime application in order to confiscate assets from the gang. A restraint order has been in place for the past two years to prevent the disposal of £1 million of assets.

A woman died from a heart attack caused by shock after waking up to discover she had been declared dead - and was being prepared for burial.

As mourning relatives filed past her open coffin the supposedly dead woman suddenly woke up and started screaming as she realised where she was.

Fagilyu Mukhametzyanov, 49, had been wrongly declared deceased by doctors but died for real after hearing mourners saying prayers for her soul to be taken up to heaven in Kazan, Russia.


Fagilyu Mukhametzyanov pictured with her husband Fagili. The Russian woman died from shock after waking up at her own funeral

Devastated husband Fagili Mukhametzyanov, 51, had been told his wife had died of a heart attack after she'd collapsed at home suffering from chest pains.

Mr Mukhametzyanov said: 'Her eyes fluttered and we immediately rushed her back to the hospital but she only lived for another 12 minutes in intensive care before she died again, this time for good.

'I am very angry and want answers. She wasn’t dead when they said she was and they could have saved her.'

Hospital spokesman Minsalih Sahapov said: 'We are carrying out an investigation.'