Leveson: email reveals News International executives were aware of hacking But most damagingly it laid bare the cosy and potentially corrupt relationship between the police and News International which not only allowed Mrs Brooks to be appraised of the police investigation into her own company, but, it was suggested yesterday, seemed to extend to her being given a say in how far that investigation went. The email was one of a number of crucial and hitherto unseen documents presented to the Leveson inquiry yesterday. Together they show that the police were fully aware of the extent of phone hacking shortly after beginning their investigation more than six years ago. The documents underline the insincerity of the force's repeated assurances that there had only been a "handful" of hacking victims - a line they repeated until 2010. And they show that News International's "one rogue reporter" defence, again repeated until 2010, was known to likely be false by at least three of the company's most senior executives four years previously. The new police investigation, Operation Weeting, began in 2011. But before Lord Leveson was told of its progress yesterday, he was given a blow by blow account of the failings in the previous investigation and the whiff of corruption which surrounded it. Scotland Yard launched Operation Caryatid in December 2005 after members of the royal household reported fears that their voicemails had been hacked by the News of the World. Falling under the command of the SO13 anti-terrorist branch, the inquiry was overseen by detective superintendent Philip Williams and detective chief inspector Keith Surtees who quickly established that Clive Goodman was accessing the voicemails of a member of the royal household. In an entry into the police log on January 30 2006, Det Supt Williams noted that Goodman was using his home telephone to dial directly into the voicemails of Jamie Lowther Pinkerton, a royal aide. And he adds: "The implications are quite far reaching because Vodaphone [sic] have apparently not appreciated that this was even possible. If this is possible it is likely to be far more widespread than CG [Goodman] hence serious implications. Soon afterwards, in May 2006, police alighted upon Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator, as a suspect. At this point officers considered what to do next. Det Supt Williams created a document which set out their three options. Option one was "doing nothing." Option two was to hand over the investigation to another police unit. Option three was to begin a formal investigation which would "establish whether or not there are evidential links to the potentially wider unauthorised intrusion/access which has been suspected." Det Supt Williams recommended option three, saying: "We have discovered a vulnerability that exists within the mobile telephone industry. I suspect that the media world may well be aware of this vulnerability and there may well be a host of people using this vulnerability for journalistic purposes. At Mulcaire's home police found his notebook containing 11,000 pages. Two days later DCI Surtees made an entry on the police log. He wrote: "Having reviewed the material seized at the address searches it is clear that there is a wealth of sensitive documents relating to hundreds of individuals including Royal Household, Members of Parliament, Sports stars, Military, Police Celebrities and Journalists." Despite this however, the force were wary about widening the investigation. Part of their reticence was down to the terror threat at the time. The force was investigating 72 separate terror plots. Det Supt Williams wrote: "Taking this inquiry forward will impact on core SO13 operations and the resource implications for a prosecution could be significant." While Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, who was in overall charge of the investigation, said that he decided not to widen the investigation "given the wider context of counter terrorist operations that posed an immediate threat to the British public." But yesterday Robert Jay QC, hinted at more sinister reasons for the reluctance of Scotland Yard to extend their investigation into News International. He said: "Public concern may be expressed in just one sentence. The relationship between the police and News International in particular was at best inappropriately close and at worst corrupt; and this explains why the police did not properly investigate phone hacking in 2006 and subsequently in 2009 and 2010. Later he spoke of an "unhealthy, over-cosy and overly close relations" between the press and the police. Speaking about the police's decision not to notify potential victims, he added: "It might be argued that the police deliberately failed to notify people in order to avoid a public furore which might have called their whole strategy, including their relationship with News International, into question." The closeness of that relationship was spelled out in extraordinary detail in the email from Mr Crone to Mr Coulson. The email was sent on September 15 2006, at a point when News International executives were presumably wondering whether the investigation surrounding Goodman would go further. They got their answer apparently from a police officer on the investigation who leaked details of the inquiry to Mrs Brooks. The alleged leak is currently being investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission [IPCC]. Headed "strictly private and confidential," Mr Crone begins: "Andy, here's what Rebekah told me about info relayed to her by cops." He goes on to spell out that Mrs Brooks had been told that Mulcaire and Goodman were "bang to rights" and that police had discovered between 100 and 110 victims of phone hacking. Mrs Brooks's police mole had also told her that all of the payment records found at Mulcaire's home related to News International and totalled more than £1million. She was told that the police had no plans to widen the investigation beyond Goodman "but would do so if they got evidence of News of the World journalists directly accessing the voicemails." In the final point on the email - point ten - Mr Crone tells Mr Coulson that the police "are going to contact RW today to see if she wishes to take it further." Mr Jay explained that RW is Rebekah Wade - Mrs Brooks's maiden name - and adds: "The possible inferences to be drawn from this saga are multifarious and I do not intend to spell them out." Referring to the police's failure to widen their investigation, the barrister said: "Although the police knew that the likely victims extended far beyond those who were named on the Mulcaifre/Goodman indictment, the proposition that they had the evidence to prosecute others within News International is likely to be far more controversial." On the subject of News International's apparent knowledge that the hacking went wider than Goodman, Mr Jay added: "There is no necessary cast-iron link between the number of victims and the number of News International employees who were implicated, although the inherent probabilities and ordinary common sense would tend to suggest that there might well be." Yet despite all of this, News International continued to make repeated denials and the police twice declined to re-open the case. Yesterday the folly of both those decisions was exposed by Sue Akers, the Scotland Yard officer who heads Operation Weeting. Her inquiry has already identified more than 800 victims of phone hacking and has widened to examine corruption between News International journalists and public officials. To date 16 journalists, three police officers, a member of the armed forces and a member of the Ministry of Defence have been arrested. In her witness statement Mrs Akers hinted at the likelihood of many more arrests, saying: "We are nearer the start line than the finish on this inquiry."