BBC director general candidate accused in phone-hacking case
Exclusive: Former newspaper executive Will Lewis allegedly played part in email deletions
Mark Sweney
@marksweney Email
Wed 20 May 2020 11.16 EDTLast modified on Wed 20 May 2020 19.03 EDT
The former senior newspaper executive Will Lewis, on the shortlist to be the next director general of the BBC, has been accused of playing a part in the concealment and destruction of vast amounts of emails relating to phone hacking by the publisher of the Sun and News of the World, according to high court documents made public on Wednesday.
Lewis, who ended a six-year stint as the chief executive of the publisher of the Wall Street Journal this month, has been named in the case being lodged by about 50 alleged victims of phone hacking against the publisher News Group Newspapers. NGN is a subsidiary of News UK, which is run by Rebekah Brooks and ultimately controlled by Rupert Murdoch, through the parent company News Corporation.
The plaintiffs name Lewis in a 139-page document that was made public by Mr Justice Mann at a remote case management hearing of the case of phone hacking by claimants against NGN. The case is due to go to trial in October.
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Lewis, who worked at the Sunday Times in the early 2000s, rejoined the Murdoch family-owned newspapers in 2010. A year later he was seconded to run the controversial management and standards committee tasked with cleaning up after the phone-hacking scandal. The scandal came to a head over the Milly Dowler affair, resulting in the closure of the News of the World, then the UK’s biggest-selling Sunday newspaper, and the Leveson inquiry into the culture of the press.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/may/20/bbc-director-general-candidate-accused-in-phone-hacking-case