Illegaly spying on people including politicians never goes down very well and paying hush money raises even more questions. This new development should probably lead to even more legal action against Murdoch's business. The charges also could impact the director of communications for the UK Conservative party leader David Cameron who has been implicated in this report.
Rupert Murdoch's News Group Newspapers has paid out more than £1m to settle legal cases that threatened to reveal evidence of his journalists' repeated involvement in the use of criminal methods to get stories.
The payments secured secrecy over out-of-court settlements in three cases that threatened to expose evidence of Murdoch journalists using private investigators who illegally hacked into the mobile phone messages of numerous public figures to gain unlawful access to confidential personal data, including tax records, social security files, bank statements and itemised phone bills. Cabinet ministers, MPs, actors and sports stars were all targets of the private investigators.
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