Phone-hacking trial failed to clear up mystery of Milly Dowler's voicemail

Claims made about interception of missing schoolgirl's messages at time of disappearance were cast further into doubt

On 14 December 2011, the barrister representing the family of Milly Dowler rose to his feet at the Leveson inquiry to complain of a "storm of misreporting" which had blown up around the release of new evidence about the hacking of the 13-year-old schoolgirl's phone by the News of the World.

Five months earlier, in July 2011, the Guardian reported that the News of the World had intercepted the missing girl's voicemail and had deleted some of her messages, causing her mother to have a moment of "false hope" that her daughter might be alive and using her phone. The new evidence confirmed the hacking. It also confirmed that Mrs Dowler had experienced the false-hope moment and that this had been caused by the deletion of messages.

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