Murdoch to pay Milly Dowler’s family €3.5m

THE owners of the now-defunct News of the World will pay about €3.5 million (£3m) to the family of the murdered girl at the centre of the phone-hacking scandal, reports said yesterday.

Milly Dowler’s family will receive €2.3m and News International will also make a donation of €1.15m to charity as part of the settlement.

A News International spokesman confirmed the company “was in advanced negotiations with the Dowler family regarding their compensation settlement.

“No final agreement has yet been reached, but we hope to conclude the discussions as quickly as possible,” added the statement.

The Rupert Murdoch- owned News of the World was shut down in August after a public outcry when it emerged that a private investigator working for the Sunday tabloid hacked into the dead girl’s voicemail after she went missing in 2002.

Payout negotiations were ongoing as family lawyer Mark Lewis said the phone-hacking scandal has distracted from the main role of the press to hold politicians to account.

Lewis said the “most sinister abuses of democracy” included cases where newspapers had withheld information to obtain a commercial advantage.

Speaking at the Liberal Democrat conference in Birmingham, he said government proposals to cut no-win, no-fee cases would have meant Milly Dowler’s family could never have brought their case.

It is alleged that Milly’s voicemail was accessed on behalf of the News of the World while she was missing, and that messages were deleted to make room for more recordings. This gave the family false hope that she was still alive.

It is understood that the €1.15m charity donation would be made by Murdoch personally.