Dowler 'false hope' messages were not erased by NotW

MILLY DOWLER’S mobile phone messages were not wiped by journalists working for the News of the World, new evidence released by Surrey Police reveals. Instead, the messages that were deleted were most likely auto-wiped by the teenager’s phone provider 72 hours after being listened to by detectives.

The claim that the now defunct Sunday tabloid had callously listened to messages on the murdered schoolgirl's phone, and then deleted them - thus giving false hope to her parents that she was still alive - was arguably the piece of information that turned public opinion against the News International title and ultimately doomed it to closure.

After the initial claim about Milly's phone was first reported in The Guardian by Nick Davies and Amelia Hill on Monday 4 July, the newspaper's publisher came under intense pressure from readers and advertisers. Rupert Murdoch eventually saw no way out other than to close the 168-year-old paper.

Since then the perceived story of the paper's inhumanity has become established. David Cameron described the incident as "disgusting", Ed Miliband disparaged the newspaper's actions during his Labour conference speech and even Rupert Murdoch himself said the behaviour was "abhorrent" and paid £3m to the Dowlers and a number of charities.

But officers working for the Operation Weeting inquiry into phone hacking revealed late last week that while the paper's reporters were likely to have caused the deletion of some messages from Milly's phone, the specific “false hope” incident, when Sally Dowler discovered her daughter's inbox had been emptied, was not committed by the paper.

The police revelation supports the claim of private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, arrested again last week over his role in hacking possibly thousands of people's phones. Mulcaire has long denied that he was responsible for the deletions. Last month his solicitor Sarah Webb offered his "sincere personal sympathy" to the Dowlers "but confirmed that he did not delete messages and had no reason to do so".

Emails recovered by police from News International suggest that Mulcaire did receive instructions to hack Milly Dowler’s voicemail, but this occurred after Sunday 24 March, 2002, when Milly's mother discovered the missing messages.

While the argument that the paper did commission the hacking of the phone, but not the specific breach that so disgusted the British public, may seem specious to some, it has been seized upon with gusto by former staff of the News of the World and by right-wing critics of the Guardian such as political blogger Guido Fawkes.

Jules Stenson, the NotW's former head of features, tweeted that the news "doesn't excuse hacking but removes twisted cynicism around deletion which was a huge factor in closure" while his ex-colleague David Wooding (then political editor) retweeted the question: "Will Surrey Police and Guardian editor now apologise unreservedly to Milly Dowler's family?"

The Guardian has remained on the offensive, though, reminding readers that "the paper's activities hampered Surrey police inquiries at the time, promoting a wild goose chase" and quoting solicitor Paul Lewis saying: "It remains unchallenged that the News of the World listened to Milly Dowler's voicemail and eavesdropped on deeply personal messages."

But the paper has amended the Nick Davies story with the following footnote: "This article was updated on 9 and 11 December 2011. Since this story was published new evidence has led police to conclude that the News of the World was not responsible for the deletion of voicemails from Milly Dowler's mobile phone that caused her parents to have false hopes that she was alive." ·