British PM shocked by dead girl phone hack claims

Prime Minister David Cameron this morning condemned as "truly dreadful" allegations that a British tabloid hacked the voicemail of a missing teenage girl who was later found murdered.

Cameron said police should investigate the claims about the News of the World, a Sunday tabloid owned by Rupert Murdoch's News International, in "the most vigorous way they can" and "without any worry about where the evidence should lead them".

However, Cameron made clear that the allegations about the case of 13-year-old Milly Dowler would not prompt him to intervene in the bid by the News of the World's parent company -- Murdoch's News Corp. -- to take a majority stake in satellite broadcaster BSkyB.

The allegations put pressure on Rebekah Brooks, News International's chief executive, who was editor of the newspaper at the time of the murder. But media reports said she had Murdoch's full support, and would not resign.

In a new twist to the long-running phone-hacking scandal at the tabloid which has thus far involved the voicemails of celebrities and politicians, it has emerged that police are investigating claims that a private investigator working for the newspaper also hacked Dowler's mobile phone.

The teenager disappeared on her way home from school in Walton-on-Thames, near London, in 2002. After a major police search, her bones were found six months later in a forest.

Last month, former nightclub doorman Levi Bellfield, who was already serving a whole-life sentence for murdering two other women, was convicted of her murder.

According to the Guardian, private investigators and journalists listened to increasingly desperate messages on the teenager's phone left by her parents and friends as the days went by without any word from her.

When her voicemail box became full, they deleted several messages to make room for new ones -- an action that her loved ones and police mistakenly took as proof that Dowler was still alive and using her phone, the report said.

"If they are true, this is a truly dreadful act and a truly dreadful situation. What I've read in the papers is quite, quite shocking," Cameron told a press conference during a visit to Afghanistan.

He added: "The police in our country are quite rightly independent but they should feel they 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."

However, Cameron said he would not intervene in the government's deliberations over News Corp.'s bid to buy the 61-percent of BSkyB it does not already own.

"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 (Jeremy Hunt) carries out his role in that manner without any interference from anyone else in the government," he said.

A journalist and a private investigator working for the News of the World were jailed in 2007, but a new police investigation was launched this year and since then five journalists have been arrested.

The newspaper has admitted liability for hacking the phones of several celebrities, including actress Sienna Miller, whom the newspaper paid £100,000 ($160,000, 110,000 euros) in damages, and football pundit Andy Gray.

News International described the allegations about the Dowler case as "of great concern" and a source at the group told AFP it would be contacting police on Tuesday to discuss the claims and offer its assistance.

Dowler's parents, Sally and Bob, have said they will pursue a claim for damages against the tabloid following the revelations, and their lawyer, Mark Lewis, suggested he would also like to see Brooks resign.

"We have to wait and see whether she decides to do the honourable thing," Lewis told Sky News.

He confirmed the Dowlers had been told the News of the World had targeted their telephones, as well as their daughter's.

Yesterday, Lewis said: "The fact that they were prepared to act in such a heinous way that could have jeopardised the police investigation and given them false hope is despicable."