Should Clarence Mitchell be investigated?

I have moved this here sharonl as it goes with the latest phone hacking news.


I found this bit in the Telegraph very strange yesterday. Why are they interviewing CM about the list, how would he know if they had been hacked? .................


One is understood to be Justine McGuinness, a Liberal Democrat adviser who was a spokesman for the McCanns. The list of possible victims also features Miss McGuinness’s Lib Dem colleagues, Mr Clegg and Sir Menzies, and Jane Tanner, who was on holiday with the McCanns in Praia da Luz, Portugal, and is convinced she saw Madeleine being carried off by a man.

Detectives were said to have interviewed Clarence Mitchell, the McCanns’ spokesman, about the list, although he was unaware how it came into fruition. Mr Mitchell has confirmed that he met officers after attempts were made to access his Vodafone account.
A Scotland Yard spokesman said of the list: “If anyone is concerned about telephone hacking we are duty bound to take it seriously.”

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James Murdoch 'could face prosecution' under corruption law in America over newspaper payments to police officers


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Last updated at 12:57 PM on 9th July 2011


James Murdoch could face criminal charges in America over News of the World payments to police officers, it was claimed today.

The deputy chief operating officer of News Corp could be prosecuted under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA)

It has emerged that U.S. prosecutors could seek to bring criminal charges, fines and possibly seize assets from the American-registered News Corp.


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Under fire: James Murdoch could face prosecution in the U.S. it emerged last night


Any payments to UK police could trigger a justice department inquiry under American laws because News International is a British subsidiary of the U.S. company.


News of the World journalists are said to have paid police informants as much as £100,000 for their services.

The FCPA act outlaws American companies from bribing foreign officials to gain business.

Mr Murdoch has admitted he inadvertently misled parliament over the phone hacking scandal because he did not have the full facts at the time

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Axe: The announcement that the News of the World will close after this weekend was greeted with shock and amazement by journalists


Speaking to the Guardian newspaper, Butler University lawyer and FCPA expert Mike Koehler said: 'I would be very surprised if the U.S. authorities don't become involved in this [NI] conduct.'

He added: 'Perhaps more importantly, the act requires that payments to government officials need to be in the furtherance of 'obtaining or retaining' business.
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Attack: Rupert Murdoch's empire faces a damaging police probe in the UK that could see charges brought in the U.S.

'If money is being paid to officials, in this case the police, in order to get information to write sensational stories to sell newspapers, that would qualify.'

Mr Koehler added the justice department was keen to bring cases against both individuals and companies as prosecutions brought 'maximum deterrence'.


The decision to close the News of the World in an attempt to save Rupert Murdoch's bid to seize full control of BSkyB appears to have done little to stem the slide in the share price.

The broadcaster was hit by the release of a letter from Ofcom signalling that it was continuing to watch News Corporation and BSkyB very closely.


Shares in BSkyB fell sharply, knocking £1billion off its value as the media regulator said it wants to be sure that directors and controlling shareholders are 'fit and proper' people to hold a broadcasting licence.

David Cameron earlier informed James Murdoch there were a lot of questions still to be answered and
warned there would be delays to proposals for a takeover bid of BSkyB by the corporation.

Ofcom told John Whittingdale, chairman of the parliamentary media committee, that it would wait for results of the ongoing investigation before making a judgment.


The regulator, which had earlier given consent to the News Corporation bid, has the power to deny or revoke a licence


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sharonl wrote
When Madeleine McCann disappeared, Mr Mitchell left his job to become spokesman for the McCanns (not considering that if Madeleine had been abducted as he says, she may have been found even as soon as the day that he left work)
________________________________________________________________________

SHOULD CLARENCE MITCHELL BE INVESTIGATED?
YES

ROSA wrote:
SHOULD CLARENCE MITCHELL BE INVESTIGATED?
YES

But not yet !
He should have time to watch the others being hung out, and to reflect on his own fate before the axe falls.
Who knows, there is even a chance he might tell the truth about what he knows in an effort to save himself.

I have to say it would be interesting to see CM in that situation should it come about. But the more time they take to connect these "players" the more they can build firewalls and the less the investigators are going to find.

I agree with you Angelique. They have already destroyed/deleted evidence:

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They need to put the guards in place before it all disappears and we wonder if this ever really happened!

There is no way in my opinion that the McCanns were not hacked early doors. In 2007 any serial hacker worth his salt would have targeted the McCanns and their associates. The immediate deletion of messages and call lists showed that the group was aware of what damage texts and called number lists could do to their cover up story.

Was this cleaning up of the mobiles at Mitchell's urging? Him already having the knowledge that widespread hacking was taking place? Which does seem quite likely due to his association with so many of the cases mentioned so far. Though to give the Tapas lot a bit of credit in regard to their criminal intelligence they surely would have realised the danger to their freedom if the phones were not cleaned asap. The minor players might not have been so careful however and maybe were open to being compromised for a longer period before word to sanitise got around.

How deep did the hackers go? How fast were the phones cleaned? Who is expendable? Who else knows? What secrets have been revealed?
Will I still be protected? Do I know too much? Why did I not tell someone? Who do I run too now? Shall I jump or wait to be pushed? Or will they keep their promise of protection? What is that black Maria doing outside my house? What really happened to David Kelly?
Questions a few people throughout the world might well be asking. A few I expect, connected to the McCann cover up.

Even though he was not in the McCann camp at the beginning had Mitchell been aware of the hacking and it's implication's he could have spoken up and this knowledge maybe guaranteed he would be sent as a kind of 'human firewall' protecting Big Brother and their fears of exposure. Deflecting any crap thrown at the McCanns and keeping his masters up wth the play without fear of censure.

So Yes. I think CM, among so many others, should be investigated in the periods both before and after his involvement with the McCanns. Because I think a man who has shown the lack of moral fibre he has, would not be able to resist the lure of obtaining transcripts of illicit texts and conversations if he thought it could either enhance or hinder his career path. Maybe also to try to find something that could be used as protection in the future. A future that has arrived.

sharonl wrote:In light of the recent exposure of the Murdoch Empire and the phone hacking and police bribery scandal can we be sure that all those responsible are brought to task, this includes those at the very top who should not lay all the blame on those of lower ranking.

Clarence Mitchell claims that he is a victim here, and now we hear that the McCann friends are also victims. Can we be sure that Clarence is being completely honest with us?

Mr Mitchell was once the head of the governments Media Monitoring Unit and openly boasted that he controlled what came out in the press. This tells us that he was responsible for anything that was reported in the media, surely he would want to check the validity of some reports, was he aware of the source of much information in high profile cases such as that of Milly Dowler, Hollie Wells and Jessica Chapman? If not, why not?

When Madeleine McCann disappeared, Mr Mitchell left his job to become spokesman for the McCanns (not considering that if Madeleine had been abducted as he says, she may have been found even as soon as the day that he left work). Why the government would need to appoint a spokesman, and not just any spokesman but a top PR officer, for the parents of a missing child is beyond us all, has it ever happened before in the UK?

It was reported that Kate McCann “did a deal with the press”, much money would have been made out the plight of Madeleine McCann, but why were Leicester police so pally with two of the three suspects in the case, calling the McCanns and their friends by their first names, uploading a link to the McCann`s fund on the police website, withholding vital information? This gives us real cause for concern.

Mitchell, later went to work for Freud Communications owned and directed by Matthew Freud, son-in-law of Rupert Murdoch, whilst retaining a part time post with the McCanns

During the last general election, Mitchell and Andy Coulson were both employed by David Cameron. In 2009, David Cameron flew out to Rupert Murdoch`s yacht in Matthew Freud’s Private Jet. Cameron’s home in Oxfordshire is less than a mile from that of Rebekah brooks who is known to have frequented glitzy parties at Matthew Freud’s home on Notting Hill, occasionally being dropped off by Gordon Brown after having dinner with him.

Rupert Murdoch, Rebekah brooks, David Cameron, Andy Coulson, Matthew Freud, Gordon Brown, Tony Blair, Clarence Mitchell – thick as thieves.

Should Clarence Mitchell be investigated?

Yes he should be. Yard reviewing the mccanns case if they do it properly should lead to cm's door. He's deep up to his neck in it -he's reason for their effective cover up in the press and suppressing info from the public.

With his media control expertise, and connection to murdoch and extended family freud,are the reasons why mccanns are protected and spared by the press. He's obviously done a deal with NI. Question is who else of that set beside CM is in the know? Murdoch? Brown? Blair? Cameron?

James Murdoch could face criminal charges in America over News of the World payments to police officers, it was claimed today.

The deputy chief operating officer of News Corp could be prosecuted under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA)

It
has emerged that U.S. prosecutors could seek to bring criminal charges,
fines and possibly seize assets from the American-registered News Corp.

I would be really surprised if this massive scale investigation doesnt lead to a few prosecutions in which case successful prosecution of NI for criminal activities in UK should be enough for USA's FCPA to bring charges against its parents company New corp.

I am sure this time round it will not just be a case of pushing the blame to some individual journalists and hackers because it involved also bribing police officers which NI CEO, RB, had admitted. This tantamount to corruption charges as well. If three police officers had been identified as the recipients of the bribe than it's a matter of placing evidence in front of a judge for conviction provided NOW had not destroyed crucial evidence. Then again there are other ways of sourcing evidence...bank account cross referencing or checking for examples unless cash is passed over in brown envelopes then that is different story.

I found this bit in the Telegraph very strange yesterday. Why are
they interviewing CM about the list, how would he know if they had been
hacked? .................

If Glenn Muclaire were in jail prior to mccanns incident then if there is a hacker on team mccanns and associates it had to be another hacker. Would the hacker be working for NOW or another tabloid?

Or would it be a case of considering the persons associated to mccanns allegedly hacked were Justine Mcguiness and JT, but the mccanns left untouched, could the hacking be ordered by the mccanns side?

It would certainly seem strange to the MET if people associated to mccanns were hacked and mccanns, the more newsworthy pairs, whom the press/media should be more interested in were left alone by hackers. If every missing person victim family or murdered victim family were hacked and the mccanns were not, again that alone would arouse investigators suspicions which would then begs the question -why the couple in such a high profile case were spared hacking by NOW? Coupled this with the preferential treatment they were accorded by NOW and Sun...something is definitely fishy!

Post Muclaire sentencing one has to assume the dark arts practised by NOW had to be done by another PI, the interesting question is: was CM aware of NOW unprincipled practice?
Was he involved in the hacking decision where mccanns case was concerned? Or did he instigate other unscrupulous person (like mccanns dubious financial supporter for example) to perform the same illegal practice on those deemed detrimental to the exposure of mccanns lies? If the investigators had got hold of the list of people hacked it would have to come from somewhere? Question is who supplied that list? an underdog in NOW or other tabloid?

CM alleged someone attempted to obtain his account info from his phone provider which is not the same as saying he was hacked. Person soliciting his details had claimed he'd received repeated menacing calls from CM's mobile and was trying to obtain his identity. That could be true and not that someone had hacked his phone rather someone tried to hack his identity - question is why?

The pertinent question is if the phone provider hadnt given out his particulars then caller would be in the dark about CM's identity. In that case, CM highlighting this is only bringing attention to himself - maybe he's trying to pre-empt police questioning. The more pertinent question is: was police interviewing him because he was hacked or because he was involved in hacking operation? If he was hacked why do police need to interview him again?

Most hacked victims wait for police to inform them (as naturally hacking mean they hadnt a clue it had been done) but with CM it's the other way round. He must be observing or monitoring his account very closely. Hacked victims had their private messages or news splashed over the papers suddenly without a source providing it to the Press. The Press had obtained it by devious mean but had this happened to CM personally? I would think not. He had covered so many cases which had been reported to be hacked - so was he interviewed pertaining to the mccanns only? He alleged the mccanns werent hacked? Has he seen the list?
#
It would be too much to hope he was implicated in the hackergate hence of interest to the Police for that reason, but for the police to want to re-interview him again it had to be about something serious enough other than his alleged complaint he was hacked. Police generally do not interview self alleged hacked victim unless they were on the hacker's list. So was CM on hacker's list or was there substance in his complaint that it had to be looked at (not once but possibly twice) From all account his complaint about someone trying to access his identity from phone provider which the phone provider did not oblige does not warrant that level of attention from Police imo.

I think he's just making himself out to be important or something serious is afoot.

aiyoyo wrote: Then again there are other ways of sourcing evidence...bank account cross referencing or checking for examples unless cash is passed over in brown envelopes then that is different story.

Rather like the way Mitchell told people to send money to the "Fund", in fact.

aiyoyo wrote: He alleged the mccanns werent hacked? Has he seen the list?

He also alleged that the McCanns had nothing to do with their daughter's death, had innocent explanation of everything the police found or did not find, and so on.
So at one level we can cheerfully ignore anything he says, but if he wants to be taken seriously then we have to consider that the only way in which he could say the McCanns had not been hacked would be if he had personal knowledge of the entire list, and they were not on it.
I don't see another way out

aiyoyo wrote:
Most hacked victims wait for police to inform them (as naturally hacking mean they hadnt a clue it had been done) but with CM it's the other way round. He must be observing or monitoring his account very closely.

I agree, as I'm not sure how he would have known that, not unless he has contacts 'within' Vodaphone. But from what he said in that interview, it sounds to me like he is making it all up. There are vrey strict passwords and procedures in place. From what he said, no one would ever be allowed access to his account without that information and even if someone had tried, how would he know what they said? Is every conversation to Vodaphone recorded. If so, they would still have the voice of the perp. If not, how would he know? Why would this have shown up in his phone activity? Calls to phone companies never used to show up on monthly statements. It's all a load of trollocks !!


Mitchell: "But in my case Vodaphone supplied me with my records and it proved incontrovertibly that there were, that there were at least two occasions back in 2008, February and July 2008, where somebody purporting to be me, had tried to gain access to my account and information about my account, with a string of ridiculous excuses, one claiming he was a witness on a CID trial for the McCann’s, there’s no such thing, that’s nonsense. Another one claiming he’d received a text message which Vodaphone confirmed they’d never sent, saying that my voice mail had been accessed by a third party. As soon as I had incontrovertible proof from Vodaphone that something odd had happened on my account, I don’t know if it was actual hacking or attempts, I went to the Police and very swiftly operation Weeting sent two officers round to talk to me, urm a few weeks ago now, I gave them a full statement, all of the paper records I had from Vodaphone, they were very grateful ,but made it clear, their enquiry will go on for some time yet".

I'm with vodafone and I understand they record customer calls, in fact most places you ring seem to have a message at the beginning saying calls are recorded for training purposes. They dont give out information unless you know passwords/security question etc. It can be quite aggrevating as I forget things and when asked recently what my security question was, I hadn't a clue. Most places are like this.

How long they keep the recordings of calls from their customers I don't know but they certainly should see if they still have the recording of the evil person(s) who tried to hack into poor Clarence's mobile.

Why would anyone phone Vodaphone and say;

"he was a witness on a CID trial for the McCann’s"

If someone wanted access to his account, why would they say something as ridiculous as that in the first place?

I do not believe him and I think his accusations should be investigated.

Stella wrote:

aiyoyo wrote:
Most hacked victims wait for police to inform them (as naturally hacking mean they hadnt a clue it had been done) but with CM it's the other way round. He must be observing or monitoring his account very closely.

I agree, as I'm not sure how he would have known that, not unless he has contacts 'within' Vodaphone. But from what he said in that interview, it sounds to me like he is making it all up. There are vrey strict passwords and procedures in place. From what he said, no one would ever be allowed access to his account without that information and even if someone had tried, how would he know what they said? Is every conversation to Vodaphone recorded. If so, they would still have the voice of the perp. If not, how would he know? Why would this have shown up in his phone activity? Calls to phone companies never used to show up on monthly statements. It's all a load of trollocks !!


Mitchell: "But in my case Vodaphone supplied me with my records and it proved incontrovertibly that there were, that there were at least two occasions back in 2008, February and July 2008, where somebody purporting to be me, had tried to gain access to my account and information about my account, with a string of ridiculous excuses, one claiming he was a witness on a CID trial for the McCann’s, there’s no such thing, that’s nonsense. Another one claiming he’d received a text message which Vodaphone confirmed they’d never sent, saying that my voice mail had been accessed by a third party. As soon as I had incontrovertible proof from Vodaphone that something odd had happened on my account, I don’t know if it was actual hacking or attempts, I went to the Police and very swiftly operation Weeting sent two officers round to talk to me, urm a few weeks ago now, I gave them a full statement, all of the paper records I had from Vodaphone, they were very grateful ,but made it clear, their enquiry will go on for some time yet".

yeah, what a load of trollops!

Why would imposter purport to be HIM then make up some silly excuses about CID? Surely imposter intending to milk for info cant be that stupid!

He said he went to the Police and Operation Weeting sent investigators round to his place - how did he know they were from Operation Weeting?
BTW was operation weeting established since last scandal in 2007? or is this the latest operation name?
I would have though officers would have identified themselves by name and division rather than operation name. Imagine officers turning up at someone's place and say : "Hi I am from operation desertstorm".

Phone company might well record incoming calls for training purposes, but dont tell me they make sure they made it their point to inform every client about silly enquiries into their account or send out evidence to support it. Otherwise they will be too busy keeping up admin paper works. A hacked victim only will find out when classified info they trust to remain private or confidential appears in the public domain like via the press; and not when phone company inform them otherwise how come the allegedly 4000 accounts hacked by NOW were kept secret for nearly a decade? He's clever at bullshit as usual CM.

Anyway why would anyone want to hack into his account (he's merely a mouthpiece without a story unless given one) when it should be his notorious infamous clients who should be of more interest for obvious reason. And, guess what, according to him, no hacker shows any interest on his "untouchable" clients! Strange that No? or is it just miracle that the mccanns are just lucky in every aspect (other than losing their first born of course).

Wonder if it is not 'should'?

Who is responsible for this?

Gonçalo Amaral tapped, 29 May 2009

Gonçalo Amaral said that he was "under surveillance" and he knows that his "phone is being tapped". The former head of the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann "does not know who is watching him," but he affirms that his email has been the target of a constant curiosity and that part of this information has been transmitted to the McCanns.

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6.10. 2011

Marcos Aragão Correia and the sites seen above ended up
removing the illegally recorded and distributed phone calls

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06 July 2011

Who informed them late last year that their numbers may have been hacked?



Why didn't they think of that themselves? Considering Mitchell was telling the world this in April 2008:

I agree with you stella. That question does not make sense.

You'd ring vodaphone for lots of reasons like losing your phone/having a problem with it/asking about upgrades being due/asking about packages to see if you are on the most appropriate one. I have phoned them for all those reasons, and found the security tight. they had to be satisfied that i was their customer before talking to me.

Like you, I find CM's story unbelievable.

o/t

TB, if your friends are right about CM being MI5 then cabinet would have known of it if this link/ article is anything to go by.

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