David Maddox: Phone-hacking scandal that just wouldn't go away

Published on Friday 21 January 2011 18:00

ANDY Coulson resigned as News of the World editor four years ago, but the controversy over a phone-tapping scandal involving one of his reporters has not subsided.

At the time, he insisted he knew nothing about the practice of illicitly tapping into voicemails left on the phones of celebrities and other prominent people. In a statement yesterday, he said he would "stand by" those comments as they come under continued intense scrutiny.

Mr Coulson's resignation came after Ian Edmondson, the News of the World's assistant editor (news), was suspended just before Christmas over a "serious allegation".

The decision is believed to be linked to documents lodged at the High Court as part of a civil action by the actress Sienna Miller.

The controversy has its origins in an innocuous story in the News of the World in 2005 by the paper's royal editor Clive Goodman about a knee injury suffered by Prince William.

The prince concluded that one of the ways the details could have come out was if mobile voicemail messages had been intercepted.

Police were called in and focused on the activities of Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire.

Goodman eventually admitted plotting to hack into telephone messages left by members of the Royal Family and apologised to the Prince of Wales' household and to princes William and Harry.

Mulcaire, a former footballer, admitted five charges of unlawfully intercepting voicemail messages for publicist Max Clifford; footballer Sol Campbell's agent Skylet Andrew; chairman of the Professional Footballers' Association Gordon Taylor; Liberal Democrat MP Simon Hughes, and the supermodel Elle Macpherson.

Both men were jailed in January 2007 and the story faded from the front pages.

But the controversy came back to life two years later, amid allegations that other figures might have been targeted for phone hacking.