Well Someone's Not Keeping PaperSmart

Today the Leveson report has been released and it comes four volumes covering over 2000 pages and comes in comes in it's own cardboard box. Therefore it will take sometime before all the details emerge and are fully considered. However the reports main recommendation is for a new voluntary system of press regulation to be decided on by the press itself. There is though a threat that if the government does not like what the press agree on the TV and Radio broadcast regulator OFCOM could be given statutory powers to also regulate the print media. With this conclusion it will be very difficult for Parliament to attempt to introduce statutory regulation of the press in the foreseeable future so with a bit luck everything should soon return to normal and Max Mosley's little tantrum will soon be forgotten.

One thing that has been interesting about the days reporting is the focus on the reaction of the family of murdered school girl Milly Dowler. One of the main things that fuelled the public anger that led to the Leveson Inquiry was a claim that the News of the World (NotW) newspaper had deleted Milly Dowler's voicemails during the time that she was missing leading her parents to believe that she was still alive. The only problem is that this has since been found to be completely untrue. At the time of Dowler's disappearance in 2002 data storage was far more scarce and expensive as it is now so the cell phone provider actually deleted the messages as a routine way to save space. So while this was incredibly difficult for Milly Dowler's parents the police really should have provided a properly trained Family Liaison Officer (FLO) to keep them informed about this sort of thing. The failure to provide an FLO was hardly the police's only mistake in the Dowler case though because the man who carried out the murder - Levi Bellfield - was suspected of the murder of Marsha McDonnell, convicted of the attempted murder of Kate Sheedy and convicted of the murder of Amelie Delagrange. At the time he killed Milly Dowler he was working as a police informant and therefore was being protected by the police for all four crimes. So without the pressure that has been brought to bear by the press I honestly believe that the Milly Dowler murder would have remained unsolved to this day.

15:55 on 29/11/12.