Cameron condemns alleged hacking of Milly Dowler's voicemail as "truly dreadful act"

By Tim Montgomerie
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Speaking from Kabul the Prime Minister said, in response to The Guardian's News of the World story:

"On the question of the really appalling allegations about the telephone of Milly Dowler, if they are true, this is a truly dreadful act and a truly dreadful situation. What I have read in the papers is quite, quite shocking, that someone could do this actually knowing that the police were trying to find this person and trying to find out what had happened, and we all now know the tragedy that took place.

What I would say is that there is a police investigation into hacking allegations. The police in our country are quite rightly independent. They should feel that should investigate this without any fear, without any favour, without any worry about where the evidence should lead them. They should pursue this in the most vigorous way that they can in order to get to the truth of what happened. I think that is the absolute priority as a police investigation.

As for the issue of BSkyB and the takeover issue, that has to be followed in a correct, legal way. The government on these processes is acting in a quasi-judicial way and it is quite right that the secretary of state for culture, media and sport carries out his role in that manner without any interference from anyone else in the government. And that is one of the reasons I have completely abstracted myself from this process and want him to carry out his role in the way that he should under the law."

> Hat tip to Andrew Sparrow for the quote.