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Lawyers' letters cast doubt on News of the World claim that it co-operated fully with police over phone hacking. Photograph: Sang Tan/AP
Legal letters sent by the News of the World to detectives have cast doubt on News International's repeated claims that the company co-operated fully with the police inquiry into phone hacking.
In the letters, which have been seen by the Guardian, the Murdoch-controlled tabloid states that "extensive searches" had been carried out but the company could find only a single piece of paper covering the years of work by the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire.
Detectives who began investigating in 2006 the extent of phone hacking at the paper wrote to News International to ask for information about "co-conspirators" of Mulcaire and the NoW reporter Clive Goodman. They were pressing for information on who Mulcaire had worked for, and to whom he had provided information.
Scotland Yard were investigating Mulcaire and the paper's royal editor Clive Goodman for phone hacking and had written to the NoW asking for information and details as they tried to identify "all persons that may be involved including and fellow conspirators".
Publicly top NI executives have claimed at appearances in front of MPs to have co-operated fully with police.
It was only years later that the company handed over other material to police suggesting phone hacking was wider than just one rogue reporter.
The revelations come as James Murdoch is under pressure over his knowledge of a document which appears to show that another reporter, Neville Thurlbeck, below, had knowledge of the practice.
Murdoch claimed before MPs not to have known about that document, only for two former NI executives to contradict him on Thursday. He says he stands by his evidence to MPs. On Wednesday, an all-party group of MPs on the home affairs committee found that NI had "deliberately" tried to "thwart" justice....read more
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