News of the World registry. In 2006, reporters at the paper used private investigators to illegally gain access to hundreds of mobile phone voicemail accounts held by a variety of people of interest to the newspaper. In 2007 the paper's royal correspondent, Clive Goodman, pleaded guilty to illegal interception of personal communication and was jailed for four months; the paper's editor, Andy Coulson, had resigned two weeks earlier. In 2009/2010, further revelations emerged on the extent of the phone hacking, and how it was common knowledge within the "News of the World" and its News International parent. According to a former reporter at the
Metropolitan Police role in the news media phone hacking scandal that others, including Andy Coulson, were aware of Goodman's hacking or engaged in hacking themselves. H&L also served as counsel to the royal family at the time. On 29 May 2007, H&L's Lawrence Abramson sent the final draft of a letter whose text had negotiated between the law firm and its client to News International, stating that the review of the e-mails had found no such evidence. In his testimony to the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee on 19 July 2011, News International's James Murdoch claimed to have relied on this letter containing "outside legal advice from senior counsel”