Former News of the World managing editor Stuart Kuttner knew a colleague had information taken from the voicemail of missing schoolgirl Milly Dowler - but denied asking reporters to target mobiles, the phone hacking trial has heard.
Kuttner, of Woodford Green, Essex, denies conspiring with former NotW editors Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson and others to hack phones between 2000 and 2009.
He described accusations that he conspired with others to hack phones - allegations that ultimately brought an end to the Sunday tabloid - as "completely false" and "utterly baseless".
Kuttner told the Old Bailey he was aware of only one example of a NotW journalist being in possession of a hacked voicemail message - that of 13-year-old Milly, who was abducted and killed by Levi Bellfield on her way home from school in March 2002.
The 74-year-old told the court he contacted Surrey Police on April 13, 2002, saying the paper may have "significant information" relevant to the inquiry.
The information came from a voicemail on Milly's phone appearing to offer her a job interview
The message turned out to be left on the schoolgirl's phone erroneously by a recruitment agency who had contacted the wrong number.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article