Revelations that Milly Dowler's phone was hacked by a UK newspaper
sparked outrage. But who was the girl at the center of Britain's phone
hacking scandal?
STORY
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LEVESON INQUIRY: KEY PLAYERS
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WHAT WILL REPORT SAY?
London (CNN) -- In the years leading up to 2011,
several celebrities, royals and politicians had claimed to have had
their phones hacked by News of The World. The paper's royal editor and a
private investigator had even been convicted of intercepting phone
messages and spent time in prison. The story was covered on the inside
pages of selected newspapers but failed to really capture the British
public's attention.
November 28, 2012 -- Updated 1941 GMT (0341 HKT)
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Police said in 2011 that Milly Dowler's voicemail hacked by News of the World
- Dowler was 13-year-old murdered by Levi Bellfield in southwest London
- Milly described in court as funny and bright girl with normal family life
- But she was troubled to have discovered her father's pornography recently
That all changed in July of that year when the Guardian reported that police suspected the cellphone of murdered teenager Milly Dowler had been hacked by News of the World and that messages had been deleted to free up space for new voicemail.
The allegations sparked
outrage: amid condemnation from politicians on all sides of the
spectrum, the paper's boss Rupert Murdoch closed down the 168-year-old tabloid
newspaper and paid Dowler's parents and charities more than $4 million
in compensation. At a parliamentary inquiry into the allegations,
Murdoch declared: "This is the most humble day of my life."
Leveson Inquiry: What key players said
UK media ethics: What will Leveson Report recommend?
When Milly's parents
appeared at the Leveson Inquiry set up by the government to investigate
press ethics, they gave a raw assessment of the false hope that the
deletion of messages had raised in the days after their daughter's
disappearance in March 2002.
"I rang her phone,"
recalled Sally Dowler. "It clicked through on to her voicemail, so I
heard her voice and it was just like, 'she's picked up her voicemail,
she's alive.'"
Tragically, those hopes
were dashed and six months later Milly's body was found in woodland in
Hampshire in southern England. Although it was suspected that the
deletion of the messages hampered the police investigation, the truth
may have been more prosaic: later that year a lawyer acting for the
country's biggest force, the Metropolitan Police, said there was no
evidence News of the World had been responsible for deleting the
messages. The Guardian issued a clarification, but the damaged had been done to News of the World and Murdoch's reputation.
Whatever took place, the
fact remains that it took police nine years to bring nightclub bouncer
Levi Bellfield to justice. In June 2011 he was found guilty of murdering
Milly Dowler and sentenced to life imprisonment. During the trial the
jury was told Bellfield had previously murdered two other women and
attempted to kill a fourth.
So who was the girl whose
murder in a quiet suburb of southwest London led to the closure of the
UK's top-selling paper, suspicions of collusion between police officers
and journalists, and at one time even threatened to topple Murdoch from
the media group he had led for half a century? The scandal also led to
charges being brought against several Murdoch employees, including two
of Prime Minister David Cameron's friends.
She would always be trying to make people laugh, joking and smiling
Danielle Sykes
Danielle Sykes
Despite her
extraordinary legacy, by most accounts Amanda Dowler, who was known as
Milly, was a normal, bright 13-year-old schoolgirl who had a good
relationship with her parents and elder sister Gemma. Her friends
testified during Bellfield's trial in London that she had a sunny
personality and was her normal self on the day of her disappearance.
"She was one of the
funniest people I had ever met," Danielle Sykes said in a statement.
"She would always be trying to make people laugh, joking and smiling.
"She was one of those
sort of people that when she was happy she was exceptionally happy, an
infectious personality. If she was sad about something she would be
particularly sad and get upset. She valued her friendships and family a
lot."
Sykes, who was one of
the last people to see Milly alive, said she ate chips with her friend
in a café in Walton-on-Thames after school. "We parted and I gave her a
hug and asked if she would be alright walking home on her own and she
said, 'Yeah, I'll be absolutely fine.'
"I then turned around and shouted back at her 'I would not tell anyone what we had been talking about.'"
I don't think it's as simple as the fact that Milly Dowler's phone
was hacked and that led to the end of the News of the World. I think
there are more layers to the story than that, and we may never know what
actually happened
Geoffrey Wansell
Geoffrey Wansell
Sykes added that they had been discussing a boy whom Milly fancied.
After the friends parted, Milly started to walk to her home nearby, but was snatched by Bellfield as she walked along a road.
Milly's sister also told
the court she knew instinctively something was wrong when she returned
home to find the house empty. She said: "I knew Milly wouldn't go out
without telling Mum or Dad. I rang Milly's mobile. It was switched off
so I left a message on her answer phone telling her to come home because
Dad was really annoyed.
"I was worried because
Milly would always ring to tell us she was going to be late. It was so
unusual for her not to be home on time. I knew instinctively something
bad had happened to Milly and that she had been abducted."
Milly's disappearance
sparked a nationwide search involving more than 100 police officers and a
reconstruction of her last movements on the TV program "Crimewatch."
Detectives from Surrey police however suggested she had not been taken
by force and had run away.
Some friends indeed
portrayed a different side to Milly, suggesting she had been
"distressed" at the time of disappearance, after finding bondage
pornography belonging to her father Robert. Police initially considered
him a suspect, but later apologized.
In a statement read to
the court, Jacqueline Pignolly said: "Milly told me some pornographic
magazines had been found in her Dad's drawer.
"At the time Milly was a
bit upset about it, not much for herself but her mum. I know that Milly
did see them and there was more than one of them."
During the trial
Bellfield's lawyers used this testimony, along with a "goodbye" note
that Milly had written to her parents and a poem in which she said "I
hate myself," to paint a picture of the teenager as unhappy and
distressed. His tactics caused great distress to the family, but the
jury failed to believe his plea of innocence.
Geoffrey Wansell,
the author of a book on Bellfield, "The Bus Stop Killer," told CNN that
in the wake of the 2011 trial, during which the Dowlers were pilloried
by the tabloids over the pornography revelations, the family grew to
loathe the press. It was in this atmosphere that the revelation was made
about the hacking of Milly's phone, which became, according to Wansell,
"the defining moment from which News of the World could not recover."
"I don't think it's as
simple as the fact that Milly Dowler's phone was hacked and that led to
the end of the News of the World. I think there are more layers to the
story than that, and we may never know what actually happened." COPY http://edition.cnn.com
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