Allegations made by The Guardian that reporters at the News of the World engaged in widespread phone tapping of celebrities’ mobile phones will be rejected by the Press Complaints Commission today.

The press watchdog has concluded after a four-month inquiry that “there is no evidence that the practice of phone tapping is ongoing” at the News of the World or in any other national newspaper.

The PCC investigation followed a report in The Guardian in July which alleged that the News of the World had “paid out more than £1 million to settle legal cases that threatened to reveal ... journalists’ repeated involvement in the use of criminal methods”.

Now it has rejected The Guardian’s allegations. The watchdog will say that it “could not help but conclude that The Guardian’s stories did not quite live up to the dramatic billing they were initially given” and added that it saw no evidence of a “hitherto concealed criminal conspiracy”.

The News of the World, a Sunday tabloid, is published by News International, which also publishes The Times.

At the time it had been alleged that many celebrities’ mobile phones — including those belonging to Elle Macpherson and Gwyneth Paltrow — were targeted by reporters hoping to listen in to voicemails.

However, the PCC does conclude that The Guardian had revealed only “one new significant fact” in their reports. That was the revelation that the News of the World had settled a legal action brought by Gordon Taylor, the chief executive of the Professional Footballers Association, for “a large amount of money”. Mr Taylor’s mobile phone was one of those targeted.

The Guardian also reported that the legal cases were linked to the conviction of Clive Goodman, the Sunday tabloid’s royal editor, in 2007 for hacking into the voicemail of members of the Royal Family and their staff. At that time the News of the World said that Mr Goodman “was the only staff member to have been engaged in such practices”.

The PCC also examined whether that claim made by the News of the World was misleading. But the watchdog’s 16-page inquiry concludes that there was “nothing to suggest” that the PCC was “materially misled” by Colin Myler, then the Editor of the News of the World, or anybody else on the newspaper.

News International declined to comment on the findings.

The Guardian has branded the PCC’s findings complacent, saying that the watchdog “does not have the ability, the budget or the procedures to conduct its own investigations”. A statement from the paper added: “The report confirms the central allegation made by The Guardian and has not produced any independent evidence of its own to contradict a single fact in our coverage.

“Doubtless because of its restricted powers, the PCC has, unlike Nick Davies [the Guardian’s reporter], not spoken to a single person involved in the widespread past practice of phone hacking, limiting its own original inquiries to an exchange of letters with someone who was not even at the News of the World at the time of the hacking. Top people in the military, police, government and royal household were warned that their messages might have been intercepted by private detectives working for newspapers.

“But the only people to have seriously inquired into any of this have been the police, lawyers, MPs, the Information Commissioner and reporters, including Nick Davies. If the press wants self-regulation it cannot allow external bodies to do the real work of investigation and regulation.”

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