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 in Europe, Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, wrote to foreign secretary, William Hague expressing concern over the "potentially chilling effect on investigative journalism and media freedom." The Met initially sought to clarify its use of the Official Secrets Act but soon retreated from this initiative and withdrew its demand. "The Guardian" observed: Metropolitan Police role in the news media phone hacking scandal This article provides a narrative beginning in 1999 of investigations by the Metropolitan Police Service (Met) of Greater London into the illegal acquisition of confidential information by agents in collabouration with the news media that is