The Prime Minister sounded the death knell of the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) today.

When Andy Coulson, then the Prime Minister's communications director, told Glasgow High Court there was no culture of phone hacking while he was editor of the Sunday newspaper he was speaking under oath.

The allegation that the News of the World made illegal payments to Metropolitan Police officers highlights the fact that the police themselves are in the dock over this squalid business.

A private detective working for the News of the World is accused of hacking into Milly Dowler's voicemail after she went missing, a lawyer for the murdered schoolgirl's parents said today.

Detectives investigating allegations of voicemail hacking have arrested a woman.

The Government has been urged to delay Rupert Murdoch's proposed takeover of BSkyB until police finish their investigation into phone-hacking at the News of the World.

The Metropolitan Police has admitted that during the first four years of the phone-hacking case it warned only 36 people that they may have been targeted by Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator employed by the News Of The World.

One of Rupert Murdoch's most senior and longest-serving journalists was arrested and questioned by detectives yesterday as police stepped up their inquiry into allegations of phone hacking at the News of the World.

Another News of the World journalist has been questioned by detectives investigating the phone-hacking scandal.

News International's admission that it was responsible for the hacking of the phones of public figures ranging from a former member of the Cabinet to a Hollywood actress represents a seismic moment for the management of Britain's biggest newspaper publisher, reverberating all the way back to Rupert Murdoch.

The former head of news and current chief reporter of the News of the World have been arrested on suspicion of involvement in phone hacking, sources said.

The police chief who headed Scotland Yard's inquiry into phone-hacking dined with the News of the World at the height of his criminal investigation into the newspaper.

Senior Scotland Yard officer John Yates insisted today he did not try to protect News of the World journalists from phone hacking allegations.

Private detectives have been and continue to be used occasionally by the BBC to help make its investigative programmes, the corporation's director-general has said.