Rupert Murdoch empire 'ordered burglary'

This punk rock music video from Britain is called The Damned – Burglar (Audio Only) 1979.

From daily The Independent in Britain:

Exclusive: News of the World ‘ordered burglary‘

Police probe link to break-ins at homes of MPs and stars

Martin Hickman

Tuesday 18 September 2012

Detectives have evidence which suggests that a notorious private detective agency carried out a burglary while working for the News of the World.

In the latest twist to the phone-hacking scandal, a police intelligence report indicates that Southern Investigations, based in south London, targeted the home of a newsworthy individual in an attempt to dig up salacious information.

The Independent has established that the material – the first suggested link between the News of the World and burglary – is being held by Operation Tuleta, the police inquiry into illegal newsgathering techniques other than phone hacking and corruption. It refers to a “sortie” carried out into a woman’s home in Ascot, Berkshire, and mentions the name of Alex Marunchak – a long-serving executive on the News of the World.

A police assessment indicated that Southern Investigations or an associate had “gained unauthorised access into a private domestic premises with a view to gaining information on the resident”.

Separately, a former undercover policeman who infiltrated Southern Investigations said that it burgled MPs’ homes in an attempt to obtain embarrassing information for the newspaper. …

Tom Watson, the Labour politician who campaigned against phone hacking, said that, if proven to be evidence of burglary, the material showed further serious wrongdoing at the News of the World.

There have long been concerns that, as well as phone hacking and police corruption, burglaries took place in an attempt to land stories.

Several public figures whose voicemail messages were hacked by the newspaper, including the actor Hugh Grant, the Football Association executive David Davies, and Paul Stretford, Wayne Rooney’s former agent, fell victim to break-ins where nothing was stolen. The Labour frontbencher Chris Bryant and other MPs are thought to have been similarly targeted.

The Independent does not know of evidence to connect break-ins at their homes to the News of the World. But the new evidence provides an apparent link between at least one burglary and the newspaper. Police obtained the material in 2002 during an investigation into one of Southern Investigations’ two partners, Sid Fillery.

Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, the agency, based in Thornton Heath, used corrupt police officers to supply information to newspaper groups, notably News International and Trinity Mirror. At the News of the World, its contact was Mr Marunchak.

Did Murdoch empire order burglary of Hillsborough campaigner’s home? Here.

Campaigners expressed disappointment but not surprise after media regulator Ofcom found BSkyB “fit and proper” to continue broadcasting today despite its major shareholder’s involvement in the phone hacking scandal: here.

Two US newspapers, the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, are reporting that Rupert Murdoch‘s News Corporation is gearing up to acquire them: here.

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