Met police to submit note to Leveson on 'Dowler issue'

The Metropolitan police is due to submit "a note" to the Leveson inquiry in January, in relation to the reported hacking of the voicemails of Milly Dowler.

In July the Guardian reported that the murdered schoolgirl's phone had been hacked by the News of the World while she was missing and that messages had been deleted, but earlier this month the newspaper published an amendment to its story after police allegedly found the newspaper's journalists were "not responsible" for the deletion of specific voicemails.

The paper continues to stand by its report, which first alleged that the murdered schoolgirl's voicemail was hacked by the now-closed paper, but now say police have found the timing of events means the deletion of messages which gave the Dowler family "false hopes" were not due to the newspaper.

In an interview on BBC Newsnight, Guardian journalist Nick Davies said that "everybody who was involved in that story accepted it was true".

"They continued to accept it until four months later when new evidence, that was not available, to everybody's surprise showed that one element of that story is now in doubt," he said.

Speaking at the end of the Leveson inquiry yesterday, News International lawyer Rhodri Davies QC raised the issue of "what in fact happened with Milly Dowler's voicemail" adding that the company has "a considerable interest in the material on that" but that "most of it is not in our hands any more".

"So I don't think that I can suggest anything positive for the moment," he said. "I think it's more in the hands of the police."

Counsel for the Metropolitan police Christina Michalos told Lord Leveson that "as regards what we're proposing to put before the inquiry in relation to the Dowler issue, Mr Garnham, I understand, has been keeping the Inquiry informed".

"It is in hand. The Metropolitan Police will be submitting a note to the inquiry. We hope to have that for some time in the beginning part of the Inquiry sitting in January".

Lord Leveson interjected to say he also hopes this information is given to the inquiry "for the beginning part of the sitting in January".

But Michalos added that she was not able "to give any guarantee" in light of "the importance of anything being put forward being accurate".

Lord Leveson responded: "You don't need to persuade me about that at all".

The Guardian's legal representative also told Lord Leveson the newspaper has given its note "on the Milly Dowler incident" to the inquiry's counsel Robert Jay.

During the final hearing of the Leveson inquiry before the Christmas break, Lord Leveson also called on core participants to "address themselves to issues of credibility so that by the end of module one, or within two weeks thereafter, if they have submissions on the credibility of witnesses, they can make them in writing".

"I make it abundantly clear that the reason that I am keen to do that in relation to module one, and I'll hear anybody who wants to suggest that that's not feasible or appropriate, is so that I can consider the narrative and those features that are contained within Count 1 concurrently with the rest of the Inquiry.

"I am very concerned not to hear the entirety of the inquiry and then be left at whatever date we finish with volumes of evidence, even more volumes of transcripts, and then left, as it were, to start from scratch on the analysis. So I want to start the analysis, because I do think these three modules are comparatively self-contained, sooner than that."

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