Britain's mammoth phone-hacking probe finally came to an end Friday after a four-year investigation that rocked the political and media establishment to the core. Prosecutors announced they would take no further action over remaining allegations, and Scotland Yard confirmed it has closed the files on the huge investigation. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said it would take no further action against News Group Newspapers (NGN), global media baron Rupert Murdoch's British tabloid publisher.
England's state prosecutors also said there would be no further action against 10 journalists from the rival Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) stable - among them former Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan. "Police investigations into phone hacking have concluded," a spokeswoman for Scotland Yard police headquarters confirmed after the CPS announcement. The phone hacking scandal, which first emerged in 2006 and resurfaced explosively in 2011, engulfed top newspaper executives, police chiefs and politicians.
The maelstrom swiftly sank the expose-led News of the World weekly tabloid, which was Britain's biggest-selling newspaper. Its former editor Andy Coulson, later Prime Minister David Cameron's media chief, was among the nine journalists convicted and was jailed. Rebekah Brooks, his NotW predecessor and former lover, was acquitted of all charges.
"The politically-driven, tabloid-hating witch-hunt is over at last," said former NotW deputy editor Neil Wallis, who was cleared of conspiracy to hack phones. The probes into voicemail interception and other alleged media crimes amounted to the biggest police investigation in British history. By May 2015, Scotland Yard had spent £37.4 million ($57 million, 51.8 million euros) on the probes. Though journalists from Murdoch's publications had been individually convicted of voicemail interception offences, the CPS was also considering whether to prosecute NGN as a whole for corporate liability. It was further deciding whether to bring phone hacking charges against 10 MGN journalists.