Second police chief quits as scandal pressures Cameron: British hacking whistleblower dies

A second senior British policeman resigned on Monday over the corruption scandal that has engulfed Rupert Murdoch's global media empire and forced Prime Minister David Cameron to defend his own position.
Cameron on Monday called for an emergency session of Parliament to brief lawmakers on the spreading phone hacking scandal, trying to gain control of a crisis that is threatening Rupert Murdoch's media empire, the upper echelons of London's police force and the country's leader himself.
Scotland Yard's counter-terrorism chief, John Yates, quit a day after the head of the Metropolitan Police. The force faces a storm of questions from parliament and voters over officers' relationships with the Murdoch press and their failure to probe allegations of phone-hacking by the News of the World.
With events accelerating in an affair that has electrified public life and strained ties among Britain's press, police and politicians, Cameron curtailed a visit to Africa and defended himself from police criticism over his choice of the tabloid's former editor as government spokesman.
Though he faces no challenge yet to his leadership, some of his Conservative supporters began to raise the possibility, albeit remote, that Cameron might face pressure to go himself. He will return from Africa late on Tuesday, rather than early Wednesday, to face a new parliamentary debate on the scandal.
Following the arrest on Sunday of Murdoch's British newspaper chief Rebekah Brooks, a personal friend of Cameron and one of two top News Corp executives to resign on Friday, the Murdoch family's management of its global business interests was also being questioned by investors.
The company said it was setting up an independent ethics committee under Anthony Grabiner, a commercial lawyer and member of the upper chamber of parliament, the House of Lords.
Rupert Murdoch, 80, and his son and heir apparent James, 38, along with the 43-year-old Brooks, a former editor of the News of the World, will be quizzed by the media committee of the lower house on Tuesday in what promises to be a fiery showdown.
News Corp shares were 3.7 percent down in New York. That was over 16 percent lower than when news broke on July 4 that police were investigating whether journalists in 2002 had hacked voicemail for a missing teenager who was later found murdered.
That has reignited a five-year-old scandal that once had seemed limited to spying on the rich, famous and powerful. Ten journalists have been arrested and released on bail.
POLICE CRITICISE CAMERON
Police, under pressure for failing to probe more widely after the jailing of a News of the World reporter in 2007, have since said an inquiry they relaunched in January has the names of some 4,000 people who may have been spied on, including child crime victims and the parents of soldiers killed in war.
Yates, who was savaged by a parliamentary committee at a public hearing last week, had been the focus of complaints that in 2009 he reviewed evidence of phone-hacking by the News of the World and ruled that it did not merit reopening inquiries. The mayor of London said Yates, an assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, had resigned rather than be suspended.
Meanwhile, a whistleblower in Britain's phone-hacking scandal, former News of the World reporter Sean Hoare, was found dead at his home Monday but there appeared to be no suspicious circumstances, police said.
Hoare alleged in interviews with The New York Times newspaper and the BBC last year that the tabloid's former editor Andy Coulson, who went on to become press chief to British Prime Minister David Cameron, knew about voicemail hacking.
He was found dead early Monday at his home in Watford, north of London, Hertfordshire Police said in a statement.
"At 10:40 am today police were called to Langley Road, Watford, following the concerns for welfare of a man who lives at an address on the street," the force said.
"Upon police and ambulance arrival at a property, the body of a man was found. The man was pronounced dead at the scene shortly after.
"The death is currently being treated as unexplained, but not thought to be suspicious. Police investigations into this incident are ongoing." The Guardian newspaper said Hoare had long-term drink and drug problems.
Hoare claimed that Coulson knew about the paper's staff eavesdropping on private messages. His claims were passed to Scotland Yard but they said he declined to give evidence.