The
News International phone-hacking scandal is a controversy involving the now defunct
News of the World and other British newspapers published by
News International, a subsidiary of the then
News Corporation. Employees of the newspaper were accused of engaging in
phone hacking, police bribery, and exercising improper influence in the pursuit of stories. Whilst investigations conducted from 2005 to 2007 appeared to show that the paper's phone hacking activities were limited to celebrities, politicians and members of the
British Royal Family, in July 2011 it was revealed that the phones of murdered schoolgirl
Milly Dowler, relatives of deceased British soldiers, and victims of the
7 July 2005 London bombings had also been hacked. The resulting public outcry against News Corporation and its owner
Rupert Murdoch led to several high-profile resignations, including that of
Dow Jones chief executive
Les Hinton, News International legal manager
Tom Crone and chief executive
Rebekah Brooks. The
commissioner of London's
Metropolitan Police Service,
Sir Paul Stephenson, also resigned. Advertiser boycotts led to the closure of the
News of the World on 10 July 2011, after 168 years of publication. Continued public pressure shortly forced News Corporation to cancel its proposed takeover of the British satellite broadcaster
BSkyB.