Leader: When ambivalence changes to outrage

IT IS not often we cite the words of Hugh Grant, but the actor had a point yesterday when he said that, up until now, most people had been ambivalent about the phone hacking scandal because it involved mainly rich celebrities.

As Grant rightly pointed out, ambivalence had changed to outrage after it emerged that a private investigator working for the News of the World hacked into the mobile phone of murdered girl Milly Dowler and, by deleting messages, gave her parents false hope that she was alive.

The revelation has, inevitably, intensified the pressure on News International, the company owned by media tycoon Rupert Murdoch and on his UK chief executive, Rebekah Brooks, who was editor of the paper at the time the hacking was said to have taken place. Mrs Brooks maintained yesterday she was sickened at the alleged events, which she claimed to find "almost too horrific to believe" though her words fell on deaf ears as MPs demanded she be sacked and called for a public inquiry.

Whilst some MPs might be motivated by a loathing of Mr Murdoch and a desire to muzzle a free press, the fact is mobile phone hacking is illegal, a massive police investigation is rightly under way and the full force of the law should be brought to bear on any newspaper involved with illicit behaviour. Mrs Brooks' defence that she was unaware of what was going on is hard to swallow. Like any senior executive in any business, she has to take responsibility for the actions of her staff when such illegal working practices were seemingly widespread. Ignorance is no excuse.