UK phone hacking case sparks press ethics debate

By Keith Weir

LONDON (Reuters) - After weeks of feasting on stories about British politicians abusing expenses, journalists are finding their own conduct under scrutiny following allegations of phone hacking by a Rupert Murdoch tabloid.

British police said on Thursday they would not reopen investigations into the interception of celebrities' mobile phone voicemails by journalists, despite new allegations against mass-selling Sunday newspaper the News of the World.

But that will not be the end of the matter. Members of parliament, vilified in recent weeks for claiming everything from dog food to moat cleaning at the taxpayers' expense, want to know how rife the practice was.

Public prosecutors said they would review evidence provided by the police in an investigation in 2005 that resulted in the jailing for phone hacking of reporter Clive Goodman, from the News of the World tabloid, part of the Murdoch media stable.

A committee of lawmakers also plans to re-examine the issue and wants to recall Les Hinton, the former chairman of News International, the British newspaper subsidiary of Murodch's News Corp media empire.

"We have invited Hinton to appear before us again to ask whether he wishes to correct, or amplify, his evidence," committee member Paul Farrelly, a former journalist, wrote in the Guardian newspaper on Friday.

Farrelly also said that the committee would look at the action taken by the Press Complaints Commission, the industry's self-regulating body.

The PCC said in a statement that it found the practice of tapping phone messages "deplorable" and would investigate any transgressions of its rules over the past two years.