Hacking inquiry spreads to Murdoch's Sky News

Britain's broadcast regulator announced it was investigating email hacking by Rupert Murdoch's Sky News, only minutes before the channel's head of news told the Leveson inquiry into media ethics that his station had broken the law and misled a senior judge. An Ofcom spokesman said that the investigation would centre on “fairness and privacy issues” stemming from Sky News' admission that it had authorised journalists to hack into email accounts to score exclusives. Sky's head of news, John Ryley, appeared before the Leveson inquiry yesterday ahead of the appearance tomorrow and Thursday of James and Rupert Murdoch. Mr Ryley told the inquiry that the chief executive of BSkyB knew that a Sky News reporter was hacking email accounts even though it was “a breach of the criminal law”. Jeremy Darroch was “made aware” last September that reporter Gerard Tubb had been given permission by his managers to hack into the email account of Lianne Smith, who was awaiting trial for killing her children after her husband was convicted of child rape. Mr Ryley also said it would have been “obvious” to executives that Tubb had hacked the emails of “canoe man” John Darwin in 2008 because of his reports based on what he found in the emails. Darwin had been accused of faking his own death to allow his wife to claim on his life insurance policy. Mr Ryley has previously defended the actions of Tubb, saying his investigations breached Darwin's privacy but were in the public interest, but Lord Justice Leveson asked him: “What you were doing was not just breaching someone's privacy, it was breaking the criminal law?” Mr Ryley said: “It was.” Lord Justice Leveson continued: “Where does the [Ofcom code of conduct] give the right to a breach of the criminal law?” Mr Ryley replied: “It doesn't.” Simon Cole, the managing editor of Sky News at the time, resigned this month when Sky confirmed he had given authorisation to Mr Tubb to hack Darwin's email account in 2008 and also Lianne Smith's emails in 2011.