The best whistleblower so far from inside News International has just been found dead. Hertfordshire Police, either incredibly stupid or incredibly corrupt, have just been quoted on Sky News as saying there are “No suspicious circumstances”.
Whaether this is a convenient heart attack or a Kelly type “suicide” remains to be seen. Maybe the Met mistook him for a suicide bomber and pumped several shots into his head. With the exception of Kelly, this is possibly the most suspicious death of my lifetime. “No suspicious circumstances”. WTF!!
Sean Hoare’s testimony that Andy Coulson knew of individual phone hacking operations is pretty well certain to be true. I have written many times for national newspapers, and wherever I have written disparagingly about anybody, I have had to give my evidence. I have even, for example, been called in actually to meet the legal advisers at the Mail and discuss my evidence. The idea that journalists were not telling Coulson where they got their stories, or for what purpose they were laying out tens of thousands of pounds, is simply not practically possible. Same goes for the period when Rebekah was editor.
Sean Hoare’s testimony was plainly, absolutely true. His death discourages other whistleblowers a bit, doesn’t it? If the inquiries into News International are going to have any credibility, they are going to need a witness protection programme – from which the Met are totally excluded.
No suspicious circumstances, No suspicious circumstances, its a bit early to say that, surely the timing of the phrase “No suspicious circumstances” is itself a suspicious circumstance
eek gad
My sentiments entirely… as soon as I heard the news Dr Kelly came to my mind, well let’s see how long it will take to push the whole thing under the carpet. No suspicious circumstances..horse shit.
Can someone tell me what country we are living in?
We are more corrupt and are covering up the truth more than any other country.
First the racist papers like the NOTW are exposed, then the institutional racist police( i just call them plain RACIST), what more can be exposed?
Accidentally choked to death on a rolled up copy
of The NOTW?
Oh jeez, this really is extremely suspicious and leads one to think that there may be a far deeper well of evil – and I use that word deliberately – than even we had thought. I’m beginning to ponder upon Ruth’s postulations. This raises my ‘very simple question’ once again.
For the record I think it is Hertfordshire, not Hampshire (according to ZeroHedge).
no suspicious circumstances apart from the dead canary found on his chest…
although a real person has died. sorry for flippancy.
Yes, Langley Road, Watford says the BBC so Hertfordshire rather than Hampshire.
See the Nick Davies piece in the Guardian about Sean Hoare. He was certainly very physically fragile by that account, so maybe it was a heart attack.
Craig and everyone
While a priori this might sounds suspiciou I would be a bit careful to rush to judgement here. Mr Hoare had been known to be ill for some time. So while it’s possible that there was foul play, let’s not become conspiracy theorists without some evidence, eh?
And as Kit says, Watford is in Herfordshire.
Thanks, I have corrected Hampshire to Hertfordshire
I said to someone this morning on the phone, ‘Wait for the deaths’. I am being totally honest.
Mary
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Coincidence is not correlation; correlation is not causation.
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Let’s all hold our horses for a while, or our American Friend will have a field day.
Yeah, sure, of course, John K. ‘Our Unquiet American’, perhaps? Just seems awfully, awfully convenient.
He/she/it can say what they damned well like. I know what I was feeling and I know what I was thinking might happen. You seem to have already fallen for the planted message that he had drug and drink problems.
John K,
I don’t know how old the photo with the Davies article is, but it is not the coloration of someone with liver failure.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/18/sean-hoare-news-of-the-world?intcmp=239
And according to the Guardian today, at the weekend he was helping take down a marquee – so not a physical wreck then.
“He also said he had been injured the previous weekend while taking down a marquee erected for a children’s party. He said he had broken his nose and badly injured his foot when a relative accidentally struck him with a heavy pole from the marquee.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/18/news-of-the-world-sean-hoare
It will be interesting whether there were any witnesses to this accident – there are other explanations for a broken nose and foot. I think the “he was a druggie, bound to die any second” argument is a bit convenient. Look at Keith Richards, for God’s sake.
Mary
Suggest you read Nick Davies’s piece. He’s hardly an establishment stooge.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/18/sean-hoare-news-of-the-world
For clarity, I was replying to the post before yours Suhayl.
John K
I don’t doubt Nick Davies’ reporting or his health problems. But people can live for decades with such problems, and a week ago he was well enough to help take down a heavy marquee.
Craig
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It may all be very dodgy, it may not. I don’t know, and neither does anyone else here.
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I’m just cautioning against rushing to judgement, is all. We get very agitated here and elsewhere when the forces of evil do it, so let’s be a bit more temperate – at least unless and until we have some more basis for suspicion?
John K
Of course you are right, we don’t know yet, and perhaps we never will. We have, I think, every basis for suspicion already. What we are lacking is any evidence.
ps the picture on Nick Davies piece (at lest the version I saw) is of Coulson. The photo on the BBC website shows a pretty ill-looking man.
From Marcy Wheeler:
http://www.emptywheel.net/2011/07/18/links-july-18-2011/
Been sent the following short statement. Really.
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A SHORT STATEMENT
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Many people have accused me of a gross error of judgement in hiring Andy Coulson and suggest that I am considering my position as Prime Minister.
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Nothing could be further from the truth.
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I have every confidence in Mr. Clueless, and despite the fact he worked for the Conservative Party for 4 years I have never met him. The same goes for Ms. Virginia Wade, the “flame-haired temptress” who has delighted so many fans at Wimbledon with her “wapping hits” (©K. McKenzie). I offer them nothing but my best wishes in their retirement from public life.
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As for “top cops” Stephenson and Yates, I feel I can say nothing while they are investigating themselves. It will be a sad day for democracy when a senior police officer cannot declare his own innocence.
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Finally, I must address rumours that my staunch friend Boris Yawnson has failed to support me at this trying time. As Loud Mayor of London he has a full agenda, from trying to find one working escalator on the Jubilee Line to talking to the Evening Standard, and one can only sympathise with his delightful wife Noris as these distressing symptoms of executive fatigue overwhelm her spouse. I am sure all of us join in offering them both a happy period of much-needed retrenchment in Tierra del Fuego.
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I have every confidence in myself. No more need be said.
— Dave.
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I’m just waiting for you folks to blame this on the Jews somehow.
Recording of an interview with Sean Hoare on Radio 4 PM 3 September 2010. He sounds quite lucid and coherent. At the end the statements issued by Scotland Yard and the NoTW sound quite humourous in the light of recent events. There are suggestions about Mr Hoare in the NoTW statement.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11183038
As another one bites the dust… one has to ask… will this scandal – which is moving closer to Downing Street – actually bring down David Cameron and the entire government?
Will the LibDems see this as a golden opportunity to wrench themselves away from Cameron and regain their position as a party untainted by the corruption which reeks at the heart of the Westminster ‘rotten barrel’?
Cameron appears increasingly like an out-of-touch, upper-class, twit; his traditional class arrogance and easy charm seem to have deserted him and instedad he looks like a rent-boy for Kaiser Murdoch.
Nick Davies says of Sean Hoare:
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“In the end, his body would not take it any more. He said he started to have fits, that his liver was in such a terrible state that a doctor told him he must be dead … He liked to say that he had stopped drinking, but he would treat himself to some red wine.”
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He could have died of cirrhosis, or alcohol poisoning, or even choking on vomit, causing death by asphyxiation.
Could he have been celebrating?
Coincidences do happen, they happen all the time …
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I got an email today with the word Kiki in the headline. Ten minutes later I popped in here and there was a spam comment from Kiki.
Crikey this got to Mason, Ohio quickly yet none of us uttered the magic numbers 9.1.1.