• James Murdoch steps down as NI executive chairman • Philip Williams explains decision not to expand 2006 inquiry • Rebekah Brooks was hacked twice a week, inquiry told • Mobile firms initially told police that hacking was not possible • Tessa Jowell refused to sign statement to enable prosecution • O2 data: one voicemail rung 520 times by suspect number

This article is more than 8 years old

This article is more than 8 years old

6.08pm: We are now winding up the live blog for today, but we will be back tomorrow for evidence from former Met commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson, ex-assistant commissioner John Yates, former assistant commissioner Andy Hayman and ex-deputy assistant commissioner Peter Clarke.

In the meantime, you can read the latest James Murdoch and Leveson inquiry developments on the MediaGuardian homepage and our Leveson page.

5.43pm: Michael Wolff has posted a comment on James Murdoch's depature from News International:

What's done is done – even if they don't yet acknowledge that it is 100% done. James Murdoch, hopelessly tarred by the phone-hacking scandal, exits his position as chairman of News International, the tainted News Corp subsidiary in the UK, and takes up, in his father's words, "a variety of essential corporate leadership mandates, with particular focus on important pay-TV businesses and broader international operations." Let us first dispense with that fig leaf: James Murdoch does not have a role at News Corp. He is the shadow man. Nobody talks to him – not even, at least not meaningfully, his father. (They once spoke two or three times a day, managing the affairs of their world.) His siblings shun or pity him. He has not existed as a force, and hardly as presence, since the meltdown of the News of the World last summer. And, to say the least, there is no possibility that he will inherit the top job. The reality is stark: everybody in the company blames James for the terrible things that have happened in London. They blame his father for falling under James's sway – but blame James more for swaying him. In a way, it's even starker than that: since he left the top job at BSkyB at his father's behest and took over News Corp's operations in Europe and Asia, James has become the most disliked man in the company. This is partly because, for all the obvious reasons, Murdoch's entitled children would breed a predictable resentment. But additionally, it is because James is an extraordinarily cold, abrasive know-it-all. "Who would have thought anybody could make Lachlan look good," said one of Murdoch's close executives, referring to the contrast between James and his brother Lachlan, who once was the heir apparent – and, in his moment, another headquarters albatross. But starker still, within News Corp, there is a structural analysis of why everything in London went so wrong – with James as the faulty linchpin. In his father's determination to elevate James, James Murdoch found himself with vastly more power than he should have had. He used it, as power-mad people are wont to do, to grab more power. He did this by pressuring his father to push out all the key executives – chief operating officer Peter Chernin, general counsel Lon Jacobs, communications chief and Rupert-right hand Gary Ginsberg – who, for so long, had so adroitly steered Rupert and the company. And they had had a tight hold on his ear – for Murdoch often tends to listen most to the last person he has spoken to.

You can read Wolff's full comment piece here.

4.49pm: Maberly has now finished giving evidence.

The inquiry has finished for the day and will resume tomorrow at 10am.

4.48pm: Jay has one more question - the Mail on Sunday was notified that four people had been targeted by Mulcaire. Does Maberly recall that?

"I'm aware that was the case," says Maberly.

"Do you know why they received arguably different treatment from others?"

Maberly says: "This was probably at a period of time we were trying to contact potential victims. At the time we were concentrating on those ... where the best evidence laid in relation to the investigation."

4.41pm: The Hacked Off inquiry has just tweeted:

Court shown email from O2, including spreadsheet showing no of times voicemail nos called by suspect nos. One called 520 times. #Leveson — Hacked off (@hackinginquiry) February 29, 2012

4.38pm: Maberly is asked by Jay about the significance of the "corner names". He says some of the people he wanted to speak to, their names appeared in the corner of Mulcaire's files.

One of the mobile numbers of the three journalists he wanted to speak to appeared in Mulcaire's phone bills, Maberly says. Jay says this is important circumstantial evidence.

4.37pm: "There would have been aspects of the case I would have liked to ask them about. I had no firm evidence of their knowledge of voicemail interception or them tasking Mulcaire."

"It would have been the case if we did bring them in for questioning the likelihood is they would have made no comment as did the other two employees of the News of the World. We would have got nowhere."

Leveson says it's "all a question of inference".

Maberly replies: "We had inference, no evidence."

Leveson says he is not sure about that, saying circumstantial evidence is often very valuable evidence.

4.35pm: Maberly says he identified three names, had he sufficient evidence, he would have spoken to. "I accepted the decision the resources were not there to widen the inquiry." He was deployed elsewhere in the anti-terrorist branch.

"These were three journalists on the News of the World?"

Yes, says Maberly. He says one of them had potentially moved on and was part of another company.

4.32pm: Another list of stats suggests Clive Goodman rang a number once, says Jay. Maberly points out it's one digit away from the number of a member of the royal household, it was a misdial.

Jay thanks him. He says he read it late last night and didn't spot it.

4.31pm: Jay asks about the significance of a list of numbers and names. Maberly says they were the consequence of a billing data address, a list of people called by a 2228 number, the number you have there is amount of times they were called. The top line, their voicemail was called 43 times.

The 2228 number is Mulcaire's office phone. The top number belongs to a journalist, says Leveson.

Leveson reads out another line - the 2228 number accessed the voicemail of Sky Andrew 23 times.

4.28pm: Maberly is asked if the police tried to find out whose phone that was, which desk it was on. "There was the expectation that News International would be keeping that data for its own records."

So you were advised these records would exist, asks Jay. "That's correct. In later applications one of my requests was to ask for a list of the desk phones and diagrams as to where people were sitting."

Jay says only "one document" was supplied in this regard. "Were you suspicious you were being fobbed off?" Maberly agrees.

4.25pm: Jay asks about other phone numbers which were hacked, which were outside of the royal family.

Maberly says they looked at Mulcaire's various office numbers and also the News of the World hub number. The paper also had another number which ended in 312, had appearance of mobile number but was another hub number. It was a low cost number that saved the NoW money. Jay asks if it could be anybody at the News of the World. "Exactly that," replies Maberly.

4.19pm: It was "almost impossible" to know if someone was calling to access your voicemail messages, because that would just show as a call, says Maberly. "That's why we needed to concentrate on this Vampire data."

4.15pm: Maberly mentions "double whacking" – part of Fleet Street folk lore – where one person rings your phone and engages it, someone else rings your phone and is directed into your voicemail. You interrupt the voicemail and put in a pin number.

He says Mulcaire was "much more sophisticated – changing people's pin numbers, resetting them by calling into service providers, he had knowledge of the language they would use, it was clear he had a knowledge of the different companies' systems in order to be able to do so."

4.12pm: Maberly talks about "Vampire" data, which refers to Vodafone's diagnostic tool that could check when or how voicemails were accessed and so on.

4.09pm: The inquiry has resumed and Detective Inspector Mark Maberly is giving evidence.

4.05pm: Surtees has now finished giving eviidence and the inquiry is taking a short break.

3.53pm: Surtees had suggested outsourcing the remainder of the phone-hacking investigation to another part of the Met on 31 May 2006, and in September or October he did this again.

However, this suggestion was never taken up.

3.50pm: Surtees says the decision was made in September or October 2006 by DAC Peter Clarke not to expand the scope of the phone-hacking inquiry.

"I can't recall being at a meeting. The decision was subsequently communicated to me," he says.

Jay asks how he felt about that. "Had I been concerned about the legitimacy or otherwise of that decision I would have taken it elsewhere. I am clearly alive to the fact we have lines of investigation that have not been pursued in this case. The lines of investigation could have been pursued and as a detective I would have liked to pursue them."

3.49pm: Surtees says there had to be evidence of unlawful activity, rather than just being included in Mulcaire's papers, before they contacted hacking victims.

He adds that some of the MPs, military and police victims they did contact, including Tessa Jowell, expressed "shock, incredulity and surprise" but declined to assist with the prosecution.

3.41pm: Surtees said he would have liked to investigate further but was on a number of other investigations, including some of the 72 anti-terrorist investigations.

"In terms of what I would liked to have done, coupled with the other investigations I was involved in, I knew where my priorities lay – serious threat to life investigations."

3.36pm: The inquiry has now resumed.

Robert Jay QC asks Surtees about the "corner names" in Mulcaire's notes.

Jay:" Did you not think it likely these corner names might be commissioning Mulcaire, and would be aware of his tradecraft?"

Surtees: "Potentially, yes. I know he was supplying journalists with his product. The issue was whether the journalists knew how he was obtaining that product. Or whether they were simply blindly receiving product."

3.29pm: The inquiry is now taking a short break.

3.29pm: Was Mulcaire's whole week spent in illegal activity? "I don't know," says Surtees.

He thinks it was substantial amount of time, and also research activity going on. "That may well have been legitimate, open source research, and other, perhaps, nefarious research. Whether that would have breached the criminal law, I don't know."

Given scale of the payments by NI to Mulcaire, Surtees confirms to Jay he was "disappointed" that only £12,300 was forfeited by Mulcaire at court.

3.27pm: It was clear that Mulcaire been working for NI for a number of years, resulting in "substantial cash payments", says Surtees.

Jay asks if these were limited to £12,300. Surtees replies: "No. From memory he was on a wage of £100,000-plus a year, and I saw a number of other invoices where he was individually paid for stories. I saw one for £7,000 and one or two others also."

3.27pm: The Guardian's Lisa O'Carroll has just tweeted:

#leveson Police say News Int might have hidden or destroyed incriminating evidence when investigating goodman in 2006 — lisa o'carroll (@lisaocarroll) February 29, 2012

3.25pm: Jay asks: Did the inquiry not go beyond Goodman and Mulcaire?

"It's very difficult because I didn't have telephone numbers as the start point," says Surtees.

But you did know that people were ringing in from the News of the World hub number?

Yes, says Williams. "In treble figures. Hundreds of times." And outside of the royal family, he confirms.

Was that fuelling your suspicions that others outside of Goodman at NI might be involved in this conspiracy? "Yes."

3.19pm: Jay says he has been asked by News International to refute the suggestion by one officer that there was the fear of "some form of violence" against them which NI said was not the case.

Does Surtees accept that, asks Jay. "Very difficult for me to take a view either way. The information relayed to me is in my statement," he says.

Of the search, Surtees concludes: "The moment was lost. It was gone."

3.17pm: "A number of editors challenged the officers over the legality of their entry into News International," says Surtees.

"They were asked to go into a conference room until lawyers could arrive and challenge [their entry]. It was described to me as a 'tense stand-off' by the officer leading the search."

The forensic management team was also unable to enter the building.

"Our officers were effectively surrounded and photographed and not assisted in any way shape or form. The search was curtailed and did not go to the extent I wanted it too," says Surtees.

3.16pm: Veteran media commentator Ray Snoddy has just tweeted:

Interesting that James Murdoch re-located to the States before resigning as executive chairman of News International - how convenient — Raymond Snoddy (@RaymondSnoddy) February 29, 2012

3.13pm: But Surtees says there was "some real difficulty" conducting the search. Four officers got in to News International, the rest were barred.

"We got to the desk of Goodman, seized some material. There was a safe on the desk, which was unopened," says Surtees.

His officers were surrounded by News International staff and photographers from other papers who started taking pictures of them.

3.09pm: Surtees is now talking about his search strategy of News International. He says he was aware of limitations on what he could search for, especially when likely to find journalistic material.

The police search of News International focused on non-journalistic materials. "I wanted to search the desk, I wanted to search the financial areas, I wanted to find who was involved in this illegal activity," says Surtees.

"Despite suggestions that it would be difficult under section 8 [of Pace] and not possible I sought to do that and obtained the section 8 warrant."

2.55pm: Surtees suggested a separate investigation outside of the anti-terrorist branch when it became clear hacking victims were also outside of the royal family. The proposal, made on 31 May 2006, was not taken up.

2.51pm: Jay asks, in May 2006, if Surtees suspected activities were going on beyond Goodman. "Yes", says Surtees.

Surtees said he was informed by Vodafone of suspicious activity: a man ringing into Vodafone using name Paul Williams [an alias of Glenn Mulcaire].

2.49pm: Jay asks Surtees what evidence he believed was required to proceed with arrest.

Surtees said had to prove voicemail was accessed and person had listened to it – a period of 10 to 14 seconds – before an offence was committed. And the message had to be listened to before the intended recipient had heard it.

2.46pm: Dan Sabbagh's story on James Murdoch's resignation as News International chairman is now live:

James Murdoch has stepped down as chairman of News International, the publisher of the Sun and Times, in an internal News Corporation reshuffle. Wednesday's move sees him give up responsibility for News Corp's crisis-hit British newspaper operation as he completes his relocation to New York. The man once seen as his father Rupert Murdoch's automatic heir at the top of News Corp retains existing responsibility for "global television", overseeing busineses including the company's 39% stake in BSkyB, Sky-branded pay-TV companies in Europe and Star in Asia – and only gains the opportunity to become involved with the company's US Fox television operation as he settles in across the Atlantic. James Murdoch's managerial move away from News International explains why he was not in London to help oversee the launch of the Sun's Sunday edition, which has been personally supervised by his father. Friends say he has been eager to leave the UK and drop responsibility for the Wapping newspapers for several months as the phone hacking scandal enveloped the London outpost of the organisation. He has faced repeated questions over what he knew about the extent of phone-hacking at the News of the World. Although the hacking is known to have gone on until 2006, before Murdoch arrived, he presided over a period in 2009 and 2010 where News International denied again and again that phone-hacking was more widespread than the activities of a "single rogue" reporter. News International, meanwhile, becomes the only newspaper unit of the company not to report directly to a man named Murdoch. News International chief executive Tom Mockridge will now report to Chase Carey, the US television executive who is the company's number two, its president and chief operating officer. By contrast those who run Dow Jones, the Wall Street Journal publisher, and News Ltd, the Australian newspaper operation, both report directly to Rupert Murdoch. James Murdoch took up the job overseeing News International in December 2007, when he joined News Corp from BSkyB, where he had been chief executive. At the time he also became the chief executive for News Corporation Europe and Asia, responsibilities which he retains.

You can read the full article here.

2.45pm: Surtees says it's not as simple as looking at somebody's phone bill. Leveson says he realises that, he was wondering what the phone companies could do. We move on.

2.43pm: Jay is asking Surtees about the list of 418 potential victims, and how and whether the police could have checked if their voicemails had also been hacked.

Surtees says it would have been "virtually impossible" without a suspect in mind. So could have done it with Mulcaire and Goodman, but not other numbers.

Jay argues that actually it's not that difficult. "It's quite simple isn't it?" Leveson doesn't think it's that difficult either.

2.42pm: Detective Chief Superintendent Keith Surtees takes the stand.

2.41pm: Williams has now finished giving evidence.

2.40pm: Williams says he would like to assure Leveson that "we absolutely put a lot of effort into that investigation with the best of intentions. We were absolutely not influenced by any of the things that have been suggested and what your inquiry is about".

2.29pm: The BBC's Paul Mason has just tweeted:

#murdoch Newscorp sees global TV biz as future, Wapping as past. This like quitting dog track for Cheltenham #equuinemetaphorsorry — Paul Mason (@paulmasonnews) February 29, 2012

2.26pm: The Guardian's Dan Sabbagh has just tweeted:

So, James Murdoch has effectively been demoted, or more likely, can't wait to drop the Brit newspapers that caused him so much aggro. — Dan Sabbagh (@dansabbagh) February 29, 2012

2.37pm: Williams says he would like to assure Leveson that "we absolutely put a lot of effort into that investigation with the best of intentions. We were absolutely not influenced by any of the things that have been suggested and what your inquiry is about".

2.20pm: Williams is asked if he read the Guardian's revelations about News International's settlement with Gordon Taylor in July 2009.

He says he did, and it was based on existing information.

"There was no intention to hide anything," he adds.

2.31pm: Leveson tells Williams he is not suggesting he has been involved "in some inappropriate relationship which has caused you to backtrack on an investigation".

"But I am sure you will understand the concern that decisions taken in the heat of the terrible events of 2006 - and I'm not now talking about the arrests but the other work of your department - are very readily understandable.

"But it's quite difficult to translate some of those perfectly legitimate decisions into a construct where we now know the facts from the documents and say that there was nothing there at all.

"The risk is people might perceive your reactions to these issues encourages inappropriate inferences to be drawn.

"That is the concern I have got to address because it's critical the public has confidence in the police. The consequence of an approach that may be justified for one reason and then justified again for a slightly different reason if it becomes unpicked you have to start from scratch, which is exactly what has happened."

2.18pm: The Leveson inquiry has now started again and Detective Chief Superintendent Philip Williams has resumed giving evidence.

2.17pm: News Corporation has issued the following statement about James Murdoch:

News Corporation today announced that, following his relocation to the company's headquarters in New York, James Murdoch, deputy chief operating officer, has relinquished his position as executive chairman of News International, its UK publishing unit. Tom Mockridge, chief executive officer of News International, will continue in his post and will report to News Corporation president and COO Chase Carey. "We are all grateful for James' leadership at News International and across Europe and Asia, where he has made lasting contributions to the group's strategy in paid digital content and its efforts to improve and enhance governance programs," said Rupert Murdoch, chairman and chief executive officer, News Corporation. "He has demonstrated leadership and continues to create great value at Star TV, Sky Deutschland, Sky Italia, and BSkyB. Now that he has moved to New York, James will continue to assume a variety of essential corporate leadership mandates, with particular focus on important pay-TV businesses and broader international operations." "I deeply appreciate the dedication of my many talented colleagues at News International who work tirelessly to inform the public and am confident about the tremendous momentum we have achieved under the leadership of my father and Tom Mockridge," said James Murdoch. "With the successful launch of the Sun on Sunday and new business practices in place across all titles, News International is now in a strong position to build on its successes in the future. As deputy chief operating Officer, I look forward to expanding my commitment to News Corporation's international television businesses and other key initiatives across the company."

2.12pm: We've just been told that James Murdoch is to step down as executive chairman of News International. More details as we get them.

1.05pm: The inquiry has now broken for lunch and is expected to resume at 2pm.

1.04pm: Leveson asks Williams to look back at his original idea of preventing the abuse of phones, adding that the targets could have been notified.

He suggests Williams might have thought of visiting News International offices and "reading the riot act" to make sure it did not happen again.

Williams says it did not pass through his mind.

Did I think to go and speak to senior executives at the News of the World? No I didn't. Not because I was avoiding anything but because I had thought I had made it very clear not just to them but to any organisation that might consider doing this. If you are doing this it is clearly wrong and you are going to prison.

The judge asks him if he thinks Mr Justice Vos had the full picture when sentencing Mulcaire and Goodman.

Williams replies: "I dearly wish they had pleaded not guilty. The prosecution case had been put together with all of this material, it would have been tested in court. It would have been plain to see, that's what we were preparing for."

1.00pm: Jay asks if Williams was angry when he heard News International's "one rogue reporter" line.

"I was realistic: it was a company protecting its reputation," replies Williams.

12.59pm: Asked why News International editors were not brought in for questioning, Williams said he didn't do it because of the fear it would yield a "no comment" response. Better to do questioning from a position of strength, he says.

He says he was not frustrated by DAC Clarke's decision not to progress with the investigation.

12.56pm: Jay asks: "Was an unhealthy close relationship between the police and News International a factor in stifling this investigation?"

Williams replies: "I don't think it was a factor at all."

He adds: "No-one in my team had any contact with any of the newspapers, I can assure you. At no time did it ever influence the direction we went in with that investigation."

Williams adds: "I can assure you if I had wanted to I could have stopped this investigation much earlier. It was my intention to make this very public."

He says he has "absolute confidence" in DAC Clarke and describes him as the "most professional man I've ever worked with".

12.55pm: Jay asks if calling in News of the World executives would have been a "fishing expedition", as John Yates has suggested.

Williams says: "You need to work from knowledge."

12.51pm: In September 2006, Brooks, then editor of the Sun, was told by the police she was being hacked.

Jay says that reason Met asked if Brooks (or "RW" as she is apparently referred to in the email) "wanted to take it further" was because she had been a victim of hacking.

12.47pm: Jay asks whether the police asked the News of the World for a list of its employees whose first names appeared in the corners of Mulcaire's notebook.

"We did not: it would have been a major step change in the investigation," says Williams.

Jay says it would not have represented a shift from "first to fourth gear ... surely the News of the World would have helped to this extent, maybe even limiting it to a particular desk?"

Williams reiterates: "To put together a criminal investigation I would not just use that facet, there would be a whole range of things I would want to put together."

12.45pm: The Evening Standard has reported that Rebekah Brooks's husband Charlie has defended the couple against claims the horse they were loaned by the Met was returned in poor condition:

Rebekah Brooks was today embroiled in an extraordinary row with Scotland Yard over her alleged treatment of a police horse. The Met has accused the former News International chief executive of returning Raisa, 22, in a "poor condition" after the force loaned her the steed for almost two years. But Ms Brooks's husband Charlie, a renowned racehorse trainer, today hit back, insisting the horse had been impeccably treated. He said: "I have been around and looked after horses all my life and I am confident that I know more about caring for them than people at the Metropolitan police."

12.44pm: Jay says the email would appear to suggest Mulcaire was contacting News of the World before and after illegal accesses. "Pretty good circumstantial evidence", is how Jay describes it.

Williams says he does not know what the email is referring to in this regard.

Jay says: "Whatever this means there was circumstantial evidence by Mulcaire on behalf by someone at the News of the World other than Goodman. Would you agree with that?"

"Yes," says Williams. Three times. Borne out by phone records and call data? "Yes."

Jay says Williams had corner names on notebooks, call data, all the material in notebooks itself and "basic common sense" which was "more than a springboard for further investigation" and possible arrests.

Williams: "I agree ... I come back to the decision was we were not going to do that."

12.43pm: Jay asks if the email was sent before the decision not to widen the investigation.

Williams confirms that this is the case.

12.42pm: Williams says Rebekah Brooks (then Wade) was hacked on average twice a week by the NoW from 2005.

12.39pm: Williams says the email's assertion that there were more than £1m of payments is incorrect.

"That figure is wrong. The figure of £1m is not known to me or the investigation team."

He adds that Mulcaire had a contract for £105,000 and there may have been other payments.

Jay asks if cash payments were more than £200,000. Williams says he doesn't know. Jay responds that that was what Simon Hughes told the inquiry.

12.38pm: Here is the fuill text of the email:

From: Tom Crone [chief lawyer, News of the World]

Sent: 15 September 2006 10:34

To: Andy Coulson [then editor, News of the World]

Subject: Strictly private and confidential Andy, Here's Rebekah told me about info relayed to her by cops: 1. they are confident they have Clive [Goodman, former royal editor] and GM [Mulcaire] bang to rights on the Palace intercepts; 2. [on Mulcaire's] ... accesses to voicemails. From these they have a list of 100-110 "victims"; 3. the only payment records they found were from News Int, ie the NoW retainer and other invoices; they said that over the period they looked at (going way back) there seemed to be over £1m of payments. 4. the recordings and notes demonstrate a pattern of "victims" ... replaced by the next one who becomes flavour of the week/month; 5. they are visiting the bigger victims, ie where there are lots of intercepts; 6. their purpose is to insure that when GM [Mulcaire] comes up in court the full case against him is there for the court to see (rather than just the present palace charges); 7. all they are asking victims is "did you give anyone permission to access your voicemail?" and if not "do you wish to make a formal complaint?"; 8. They are confident that ... they can then charge Glenn Mulcaire in relation to those victims...they are keen that the charges should demonstrate the scale of GM [Mulcaire]'s activities ... so they would feature victims from different areas of public life, politics, showbiz, etc "In terms of NoW [News of the World] (a) [This section is unclear] they suggested ... News of the World journalists directly accessing the voicemails (this is what did for Clive). (b) but they have got hold of NoW back numbers to 2004 and are trying to marry CG [Goodman] accesses to specific stories, (c) in one case [redacted] they seem to have a phrase from an NoW story which is identical to the tape or note of GM's access, (d) they have no recordings of NoW people speaking to GM or accessing voicemails, (e) they do have GM's phone records which show sequences of contacts with News of the World before and after accesses ... obviously they don't have the content of the calls ... so this is at best circumstantial. 10: they are going to contact RW [presumed to be a reference to Rebekah Wade] today to see if she wishes to take it further.

12.36pm: Jay is now going through the 15 September 2006 email, read out to the inquiry on Monday, from NI lawyer Tom Crone to the then News of the World editor Andy Coulson, suggesting that information had been apparently relayed to Rebekah Brooks by "cops".

He says is not going to ask who the police officer is but wants to know if the information is correct.

12.28pm: Jay puts it to Williams that he had was being "painstakingly cautious" he had "plenty of material" to go to magistrate to say News International wasn't co-operating.

"I was thinking to do this properly we would need to go through this material and we would need significantly more resources."

Williams says DAC Clarke's decision not to go ahead with the investigation is not contained in any document.

How was it reached, asks Jay.

Williams replies: "The consistent decision was we were not going to broaden it." He adds that it was it was a resources decision.

12.26pm: Leveson asks Williams if the police had enough evidence to put in front of a magistrate that News International was not being co-operative.

Williams says "No, I don't know." He says that the CPS was not consulted.

12.26pm: Williams says in September or October 2006 DAC Clarke decided not to widen the scope of the investigation.

12.23pm: Further investigation would have required "a lot of painstaking research", says Williams. "It's a significant amount of work. Not that I'm saying it's not worth doing. It's a major step change."

Jay: "And it's about this point the decision is taken not to expand this investigation, not to take that step change? And the answer from the boss is no, we're not."

Williams says he "absolutely understands the reason why not".

12.22pm: Jay continues: "But all you got from solicitors acting from the News of the World was extremely limited, evidentially."

He asks if Williams believes the News of the World was obstructive. "Yes," says Williams.

Williams continues: "At this juncture, we had reached a stage where if we were going to go further as we speculated there are leads here, there are potential with the names in the corner, this is a step change, a much broader investigation. Is this a much wider, bigger investigation?"

12.19pm: Jay asks if Williams should not have carried out further investigation, including calling in the people whose names appeared in the corner of Mulcaire's notes.

"There were absolutely further leads that we could have followed in this investigation," says Williams.

You were contemplating that others at the News of the World may have been involved? "Yes," says Williams.

12.18pm: Jay asks why the Met's production order didn't include Goodman's safe and computer.

Willliams says it covered "all relevant material".

12.17pm: Leveson tells Wiliams notifying victims it is no different than if the police foiled an armed robbery at a bank before it took place.

"I can understand this is not an easy job, Mr Wiliams. If you thought a bank was a potential target of an armed robbery but you foiled it so the bank was never touched would you call the bank a victim of a conspiracy to rob?" asks Leveson.

"Yes," says Williams.

"So why is it any different to those on your list when it is abundantly clear Mr Mulcaire is collecting phone numbers and pin numbers and all this detail, he is probably doing it for someone else and therefore he is conspiring with them probably to use this information to access voicemails?"

Williams says: "In hindsight I entirely agree … I totally understand when people look back they think more people should have been informed."

12.16pm: Lord Sugar has responded to Rupert Murdoch's tweet about the rebekah Brooks horse story:

@rupertmurdoch RT..about R Brooks saving horse fromglue factory!..be fair boss if it was Cheerie Blair or Sarah Brown wouldSUN run story ? — Lord Sugar (@Lord_Sugar) February 29, 2012

12.12pm: Williams says he hoped the phone companies would tell customers whose voicemails may have been intercepted.

In fact, it took the networks took almost six years to tell customers.

12.11pm: Williams says: "At the time, my mindset was that to be a victim, the voicemail had to be unopened. I was looking for way of making it public."

He adds that the strategy of not telling potential victims was not about limiting the story.

12.08pm: Williams confirms the police decided to notify only four categories of victims whose voicemails had been called: MPs, the royal household, the police and the military.

12.03pm: Williams says the mobile companies were not telling him phone hacking was a big problem.

Lord Justice Leveson is sceptical how phone companies could ever check what was going on – and might not want to reveal full scale of problem for commercial reasons.

Williams says: "I totally accept it was very challenging for them. Some of them couldn't do it. Vodafone and O2 had a better software system."

11.57am: Jay asks why all 418 names in the police list of potential victims were not contacted.

Williams replies:

All I got there was a snapshot in time of material we happened to receive. There could well be a wider pool of people ... this strategy was aimed at the full potential of those potential victims might be. I was hoping to address that much wider potential, which would have included everybody on that list.

Williams's memo at the time said contacting victims would be "resource intensive", and the hacking was concerned with obtaining "salacious gossip".

11.53am: The police sent a production order to all five UK mobile phone companies asking for details on calls to a list of unique voicemail numbers (UVNs).

"You were beginning to build up clear picture of access to voicemail by others in the News of the World?" asks Jay.

Williams says data was in respect of Goodman and Mulcaire, and "hub number" at the News of the World. "We had information the 'hub number' was calling these unique voicemail numbers," he adds.

Williams said police wanted to know if it was Goodman or Mulcaire ringing from there, and what the phone data was behind that hub number.

"The number ended 5354," says Jay. "Does that ring a bell?" Williams can't remember.

11.52am: Jay says police adopted an "overly cautious approach" to potential victims given the "persistent pattern of behaviour" by Mulcaire.

"Everything he is doing is with the objective [of accessing voicemail]," he adds.

11.42am: Williams says he launched a financial review of Goodman and Mulcaire as the police were considering attempting to show that their assets were the proceeds of crime.

He says says the only amount they could definitively prove were Mulcaire's proceeds from phone hacking was the £12,300 payments from Goodman cited in the prosecution.

11.37am: Jay asks Williams about whether there was evidence of the involvement of the News of the World editor, Andy Coulson, or other journalists in phone hacking.

Williams says:

We were all aware what the speculation was and how this might be further than these two men because that was part of our discussion whether there might be other defendants. At that time we didn't have evidence.

A CPS memo of a meeting in August 2006 said the police did not have evidence Mulcaire was working with other NoW journalists.

11.37am: The inquiry has now resumed.

11.28am: The inquiry is now taking a short break.

11.28am: Jay suggests the evidence of who requested the work was the corner name.

Williams says: "It was indicitive, I agree, that could well be the person. From my point of view, as an investigation, I would need to build that case to actually prove that in court."

Jay asks: "Did you associate any of the corner names, which were first names, with any employees of the News of the World?"

Williams says: "They could be from any organisation."

11.22am: Jay asks if Williams had seen the "corner names" in Mulcaire's notes. He says yes.

However, he says to build a case he would need substantive evidence of the identity of the corner names.

Jay suggests that was a "pretty strong clue".

Williams replies: "That was our supposition. The names in the corner were the person who potentially either instructed them or for whom Mulcaire was doing the work."

What was absolutely absent, we didn't see anything coming through into Mr Mulcaire that would say from whoever, I would like you to do whoever. Nor did we see any requests. Nor did we see the outcome of what he did … and how he billed it.

11.19am: Jay points out that the list contained people who would not have been of interest to royal correspondent Goodman, including paedophiles, reporters and others.

Williams says he did not recognise many of the names.

11.18am: Financial Times media correspondent Ben Fenton has just tweeted:

Williams denies he knew in 06 that Mul was screwing Prezza's phone. [historical note: practitioners sd 'phone-screwing' not 'hacking'] — Ben Fenton (@benfenton) February 29, 2012

11.15am: Surtees instructed a list to be drawn up of those potentially compromised.

Williams says the list took about a week to compile, and contained the key names that might be involved.

The list contained 418 or 419 names.

He says the list was "definitive" – it gave an idea of "potential pool", the scale of the number of victims involved.

11.11am: Jay asks Williams about Mulcaire's police interview. He was asked about the hacking of John Prescott and Joan Hammell.

Williams says he was aware that there may have been more targets of interception, but says the challenge was to prove that they were hacked.

He adds that Mulcaire was getting information for the media world; it was not clear whether he was using illegal or legal techniques.

My mindset was Glenn Mulcaire is getting information presumably for the media world and he may well be using a whole range of different techniques, some of those techniques may well be distasteful to the public but may be lawful. But others may be illegal.

11.11am: Williams says he found out about the "for Neville" email at some time between the arrests in August and the trial in November.

11.10am: Surtees told Williams that News International had been obstructive when the police tried to arrest Goodman.

11.06am: Goodman and Mulcaire were arrested on 8 August 2006. Williams had been on leave and was briefed on arrests by Detective Chief Superintendent Keith Surtees.

The next day, the police discovered a plot to blow up nine airliners.

11.04am: Williams wrote a memo saying the number of victims wouldn't make much difference to the sentence, which would be relatively small. Even if he found 100 victims, there would be relatively little difference.

11.02am: Tom Watson MP has responded to Rupert Murdoch's tweet:

@rupertmurdochYou comment on her horse but not on her insider knowledge of a criminal investigation into your company. Have you no shame? — tom_watson (@tom_watson) February 29, 2012

10.58am: At this time, Williams again raised issues of resources. He said it was important to "formally record" increased workload on SO13, with 72 on-oing operations.

Jay suggests he was putting down a "firm marker" to his superiors that resources were under pressure.

Williams describes it as a "moment of reflection". He said he was "happy with resources" but outlining "context".

"Our judgment at that time was a balance of risk and harm, we judged that very much on the potential of what that threat to life might be, judging it against different operations.

"But at this stage, for what we were doing, I was satisfied we had enough resources."

10.58am: The police investigation subsequently revealed two interceptions by Goodman, and two by Mulcaire, relating to royal household phones.

10.57am: The BBC's Ross Hawkins has just tweeted:

Philip Williams at #leveson : Police in 06 were aware phone hacking could be a technique used across all media & poss by criminals — Ross Hawkins (@rosschawkins) February 29, 2012

10.56am: What Williams wrote in 2006: "I suspect the media world may well be aware of this vulnerability ... more sinister side is knowledge could be used by criminals ... to threaten national security."

Williams says he feared it could be a technique used across all media. However, he says "at no time did any of the phone companies once they were aware of the risks did they come back and say this is happening all over our system".

10.53am: Rupert Murdoch as just made a surprise intervention into the debate about the Metropolitan police's admission that it loaned Rebekah Brooks a police horse:

Now they are blaming R Brooks from saving an old horse from the glue factory.What next? — Rupert Murdoch(@rupertmurdoch) February 29, 2012

10.52am: "This was new to them, they didn't realise this could be done," says Williams of the phone companies.

"They are telling us it's news to them but people were able to do this. Their own engineering software, although it could show what we called the rogue numbers coming into the voicemail number, it had difficulty telling them what was going on in the voicemail box. They couldn't tell us if message existed in the voicemail box."

They had to use more specialist software to get more accurate picture of what was going in on Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton's voicemail.

10.51am: Williams stresses: "I needed to build my case before I actually confronted the issue."

10.50am: Williams said he could have spoken to Goodman - "that option was open to me but I didn't believe I had enough evidence. He may have said no comment and that would have been the end of the matter."

He says he wanted to have "as strong a case as possible ... I didn't believe I had the evidence."

Williams said he needed to build his case with the help of the phone companies. Key, or so he thought, was that intercepted message was previously unlistened to.

10.50am: Williams says: "I was aware there was potentially evidence – untested – that some members of the royal household may have been having their unique voicemails intercepted. In terms of it actually being a new unlistened-to message, I hadn't got evidence of that."

He adds: "I was not going to consider doing nothing. I very much wanted to do something. Me and my team put in a huge amount of effort maintaining the support of the victims. We wanted to bring this to court to demonstrate it was absolutely a criminal offence and not to be tolerated."

10.47am: Police strategy at the time involved asking Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, one of the private secretaries to Princes William and Harry, not to pick up a voicemail and see if it was picked up by one of the rogue numbers.

Williams says he wanted to save potential victims – the royals – from embarrassment if case came to court. He did not want the content of their phone calls to be revealed.

To maintain the confidence of my victim I wanted to be able to assure them if at all possible if they were going to be a victim in my case it would be solely on the fact technically that one of the messages had been intercepted, not the who or what it was about.

10.36am: At this stage, Williams says he alerted his supervisory officers that more resources would be required.

I was raising the potential public or media spin that might be put on it that sometimes we are using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, why are we using anti-terrorism officers to investigate this offence that has nothing to do with terrorism. Equally there were valid arguments for why we should retain it.

Williams adds that he wanted the inquiry to be kept within SO13 because he feared leaks would jeopardise the operation by warning the suspects and alerting the media.

10.35am: The investigation identified five of six potential hacking victims, all within the royal household.

It concluded at the time "This ability was highly unlikely to be limited to Clive Goodman alone. It is probably quite widespread amongst those who would be interested in such access. There is a much wider security issue within the UK and potentially worldwide."

10.34am: Williams says the key to investigation was that the interception took place prior to the recipient listening to the message.

He said that was the opinion of the Crown Prosecution Service.

My belief is consistently what the law said for this to be a cirmnal offence it had to be a new and unread message. We coined this analogy the 'unopened envelope on a desk'.

10.32am: At a review of the case on 4 April 2006, charges were considered for interception under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, and under the Computer Misuse Act. The latter was later discarded.

10.27am: The private secretaries indicated that they were willing to co-operate with a prosection.

10.27am: Williams's log from 30 January 2006 said:

The implications are quite far-reaching because Vodaphone have apparently not appreciated that this (phone hacking) was even possible... If this is possible it is likely to be far more widespread than CG (Clive Goodman), hence serious implications for security confidence in Vodaphone voicemail and perhaps the same for other service providers.



Jay says this was "prescient".

10.26am: his was significant says Jay because Vodafone "did not know" this was possible. "At the time that was exactly the position with Vodafone," confirms Williams.

He says Vodafone said it was "not possible" to do this. Only because we persisted did they discover that this was possible, says Williams. "This was consistent with other phone companies at this time."

10.23am: Discussions with Vodafone revealed that several numbers were calling in to phones belonging to two private secretaries to Princes William and Harry.

One of the numbers was traced to the home phone of News of the World royal editor Clive Goodman.

10.22am: Williams says he was picked as senior investigating officer by Clarke because phone hacking was a "kindred matter", not a core anti-terrorism investigation.

He says the first stage of the investigation was "What is actually happening here?" He says it was not known definitively that there had been the interception of voicemails.

10.21am: Operation Caryatid was launched in December 2005 after members of the royal household reported fears that their voicemails had been hacked by the News of the World.

10.19am: SO13 oversaw the 2006 phone-hacking investigation, Operation Caryatid.

Williams says SO13 was under "absolutely huge pressure" in relation to its anti-terrorist activities in 2006 following the 7/7 bombings.

10.12am: In 2006, Williams was a member of SO13, the Met's anti-terrorism unit.

The head of SO13 at the time was DAC Peter Clarke, who reported to AC Andy Hayman.

DAC John Yates was responsible for the specialist crime unit at the time and had no involvement in specialist operations, including SO13.

SO13 had four investigation teams.

10.10am: Detective Chief Superintendent Philip Williams takes the stand.

10.06am: The inquiry has begun. Robert Jay QC, counsel to the inquiry, says he will deal with the police investigations into phone hacking in 2006 and 2009.

He says the police officers' statements to previous reviews will be used as evidence but they must be redacted before they can be published.

9.54am: Welcome to the Leveson inquiry live blog.

After criticism of the police yesterday by Simon Hughes and Chris Jefferies, today the inquiry will hear evidence from serving Met officers Detective Superintendent Philip Williams, who led the original phone-hacking investigation, Detective Inspector Mark Maberly and Detective Chief Superintendent Keith Surtees.

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