UK public find phone hacking despicable, bitter about media
By Sarah Young
SOHAM, England | Wed Jul 6, 2011 12:21pm EDT
(Reuters) - Residents of the small town of Soham in eastern England said on Wednesday the alleged hacking of phones by a popular tabloid weekly owned by News International was "despicable."
The affair, in which News of the World journalists were said to have hacked into the mobile phone of an abducted girl who was later found to have been murdered, has caused outrage in the media and prompted politicians to say there should be an official inquiry [ID:nL6E7I613P].
"It's totally despicable," said 59-year-old pensioner Sandy Smith. "This is people's private ground, their sadness and pain. It's absolutely despicable."
Soham, a pretty Cambridgeshire market town where tea shops bustle in the daytime with young families and retired folk, was rocked by the murders of two schoolgirls in 2002.
The girls' parents have been visited by police investigating the phone-hacking affair. Relatives of people killed in London's 7/7 bombings in 2005 also said police had told them their voicemail messages may have been intercepted.
"It's an invasion of everyone's privacy and it's horrible, especially reading about the things here and everything else which obviously affected all of us here," said 39-year-old Beccy Coverdale on Soham high street.
Aircraft engineer Spencer Griggs said the hacking was "outrageous" and said: "I don't buy the News of the World very often anyway, so that just sort of makes me think now I won't bother."
Among Soham residents who Reuters spoke to, sentiment was bitter against the media in general.
"I don't think it's the right thing to have done but I also don't think the News of the World are the only people to have done it. I think it's across the media," said 60-year-old Margaret Ford, a regular News of the World reader.
"I don't think (this affair) will stop me from buying it. Maybe for a couple of weeks but I think they always have really interesting stories."
Several advertisers, including Ford and Lloyds Banking Group, have said they will suspend advertising from the News of the World, which is part of News International, the UK newspaper arm of News Corp.
But public disgust could prove more damaging to the paper in the long run than political and even commercial pressure. The News of the World's daily stablemate, the Sun, has never recovered sales in Liverpool after stories it ran in the wake of a football stadium crush over 20 years ago appalled city residents.
"It does makes you wonder whether they have any moral standpoint at all," said 21-year-old Ben Fry.
(Editing by Tim Pearce)
(Writing by Rosalba O'Brien)
Credit: Reuters (www.reuters.com)
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