Leveson inquiry: NotW hired special forces to track police Mr Harrison said that, on at least two occasions, a vehicle parked up on a roundabout on the outskirts of the town attempted to follow the Soca surveillance team. "We identified them because they were sat in the position that we would sit in if we were doing the same job," he said. We were told that they were probably ex-Special Forces soldiers who would have a good knowledge of surveillance techniques. The former Soca investigator criticised the actions of the News of the World, which was closed last July after the revelation that it hacked murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler's phone. He said: "Murder suspects before they are arrested, before they realise they are being investigated, may return to the scene of the crime. They may try to dispose of evidence, they may try to move bodies, they may even try to commit further offences... If they thought they were being followed, they might very well stop what they were doing or not do what they had planned to do. If a surveillance team cannot see the sort of evidence we were after, if that's not possible, then that weakens the prosecution case in the future. The Sunday Mirror used counter-surveillance techniques while driving one suspect in the Ipswich murders to a hotel for an interview, the press standards inquiry heard. Steve Wright was handed a whole-life sentence in February 2008 after being convicted of killing all five women.