Milly Dowler's Family Call On Rebekah Brooks To Resign

PRESS ASSOCIATION -- Relatives of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler have called on Rebekah Brooks to "do the honourable thing" and quit.

They urged the News International chief executive to leave her post as lawyers claimed Surrey Police knew about Milly's phone being hacked almost a decade before relatives found out.

Speaking after a Whitehall meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, family lawyer Mark Lewis said his clients "take the view that Rebekah Brooks should do the honourable thing".

"They don't see why she should stay in the job," he added. "They see this as something that went right to the top.

"She was editor of the News of the World at the time that Milly was taken in 2002. She should take editorial responsibility."

Both Mr Lewis and former Scotland Yard deputy assistant commissioner Brian Paddick said Surrey Police should have told the Dowler family that they may have been targeted.

He told the press conference: "Apparently Surrey Police knew at the time that the phone was being hacked into. Why they didn't tell the family at all... is a matter for Surrey Police to answer. What it does show is that this relationship between the police and the press is not restricted to the Metropolitan Police."

The call followed a plea from Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg for Rupert Murdoch to "do the decent thing" and reconsider his BSkyB bid.

Mr Clegg's intervention came after Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt said he was seeking more advice on whether the media mogul's planned takeover of the broadcaster could be referred to the Competition Commission in the light of the phone hacking revelations.

Ms Brooks - who was editor at the time of Milly's disappearance - has volunteered to speak to police over the wider phone hacking scandal, a News International source said.