LONDON — Scotland Yard’s assistant commissioner resigned Monday, a day after his boss also quit, and fresh investigations of possible police wrongdoing were launched in the tabloid phone-hacking scandal.
Prime Minister David Cameron called an emergency session of Parliament on the scandal and cut short his visit to Africa to try to contain the widening crisis. Lawmakers today are to question Rupert Murdoch; his son James; and Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of Murdoch’s U.K. newspaper arm.
In another twist, a former News of the World reporter who helped blow the whistle on the scandal was found dead Monday at his home, but it was not believed to be suspicious. Sean Hoare had been quoted by The New York Times as saying that phone hacking was widely used and encouraged at the News of the World under Andy Coulson, who later became Cameron’s communications chief.
The crisis has roiled the upper ranks of Britain’s police, with Monday’s resignation of Assistant Commissioner John Yates, Scotland Yard’s top anti-terrorist officer, following that on Sunday of Police Chief Paul Stephenson over their links to Neil Wallis, an arrested former News of the World executive whom police had employed as a media consultant.
The government quickly announced an inquiry into police-media relations and possible corruption.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission also said it was looking into the claims, including one that Yates inappropriately helped get a job for Wallis’ daughter.
Wallis, former executive editor of the News of the World, was arrested on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications.
Yates said he had done nothing wrong.
Meanwhile, Internet hackers took aim at Murdoch late Monday, defacing the website of his other U.K. tabloid, The Sun, and shutting down The Times of London, another of his newspapers.
