A PRIVATE investigator working for Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World tabloid did not delete voicemails from the phone of a missing girl, a police lawyer said last night — casting new light on the critical event that sparked Britain’s phone-hacking scandal.

Detectives in Britain think it “unlikely” that News International journalists deleted voicemail from a mobile phone belonging to murdered teenager Milly Dowler, a lawyer told an inquiry into press standards today.