Phone hacking: News Corp accused of ‘total freak out’

Rupert Murdoch's biographer Michael Wolff has launched another ferocious attack on the CEO of News Corporation, whose newspaper the News of the World is at the centre of allegations of illegal phone hacking.

The scandal, which first came to light in 2006, has been given new legs in the wake of an in-depth investigation by the New York Times.

Wolff, who enjoyed more than 50 hours of interview time with Murdoch while researching The Man Who Owns the News, has already suggested that the media mogul may have known that reporters at the Sunday tabloid were hacking into the voicemail accounts of celebrities.

After making that claim, Wolff says he spoke to a member of News Corporation's inner circle, who assured him: "If there was a conspiracy in the company, the conspiracy was to keep Rupert from knowing."

Wolff is scathing about the denial: "That is called the circle-the-wagons defence. That's called everybody-else-is-expendable. That's called a total freak-out," he writes.

He illustrates his point about News Corporation's attempts to bury the story by reminding us of footage (above) aired last year, in which a hapless Fox Business anchor has the gall to ask Murdoch about the phone hacking affair. The anchor is left with no doubt that his boss will not be taking questions on the subject.

Wolff warns that although the "British police, government, and media took a dive for Murdoch" when the allegations first surfaced, "if it becomes necessary to have to throw him overboard to save themselves, they will".

The allegations of phone hacking were the subject of a police investigation which in 2007 led to a jail term for one News of the World journalist, Clive Goodman. Andy Coulson, the newspaper's editor, resigned, but denied all knowledge of phone hacking by his employees. The News of the World claimed only Goodman knew about the affair.

Despite further inquiries by a House of Commons culture committee and the Press Complaints Commission, the scandal had largely been defused with no serious damage done to News Corporation. Coulson went on to become Prime Minister David Cameron's director of communications.

But things are getting serious again. The Guardian, which took up where the New York Times left off, has now spoken to six former News of the World journalists, all of whom say that Coulson knew his reporters were illegally hacking into celebrities' voicemail accounts.

Only one of the journalists, Paul McMullan, is named. The former deputy features editor, who is now a pub landlord, said: "How can Coulson possibly say he didn't know what was going on with the private investigators?"

He paints a picture of an organisation where journalists would hack into celebrities' voicemail in quiet moments just to pass the time. They certainly did not believe what they were doing was illegal.

“[Coulson] was the brains behind the investigations department. How can he say he had no idea about how it works? It's just a shame that you are not awarded prizes for it. Instead, you are regulated so that wrongdoers can carry on with their corruption," says an unapologetic McMullan.

The Metropolitan police have already reopened the investigation into the hacking allegations and Coulson is likely to be interviewed. Meanwhile, MPs have launched a home affairs committee inquiry into the case, and a standards and privileges committee inquiry, which has the power to compel witnesses to give evidence. ·