London, Nov 15 (ANI): Phone-hacking at the now defunct British Tabloid News of the World was so widespread that it was tantamount to a 'thriving cottage industry', a lawyer said during a judicial inquiry into the matter.
At least 28 journalists at the News International media group employed private detective Glenn Mulcaire to carry out over 2,200 illegal voicemail tapping during seven years of eavesdropping on public figures, the Leveson Inquiry was told.
According to Robert Jay, the main counsel for the Leveson Inquiry into media ethics, a journalist alone made 1,453 requests.
According to the Daily Mail, nearly 700 tape recordings of celebrities' voicemails were recovered during a police raid on Mulcaire's offices five years ago.
Jay said it was clear that bosses at the paper condoned, or turned a 'Nelsonian blind eye' to what had become a 'systemic or cultural problem'.
The revelations are contradictory to previous claims by News International that hacking was the work of Mulcaire and just one 'rogue reporter,' jailed royal editor Clive Goodman.
"It's clear that Goodman wasn't a rogue reporter. We have at least 27 other News International employees," the paper quoted Jay, as saying.
"I suggest that it would not be unfair to comment that it was at the very least a thriving cottage industry. Either News International senior management knew what was going on at the time and therefore, at the very least, condoned this illegal activity," he said.
"Or they didn't and News International's systems failed to the extent that there was failure in supervision, failure of oversight with possible failures of training and corporate ethos and checking of expenses claims," he added. (ANI)
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