The Hack true story: How are Daniel Morgan and phone-hacking connected?

The Hack also tells the story of DCS David Cook (Robert Carlyle), who led the case into the still-unsolved murder of private investigator Daniel Morgan, which shares connective tissue with the phone-hacking scandal.

Thorne's series gradually reveals what links the two cases, with Tennant and Carlyle's characters starting largely on their own course, but merging as the seven-part series reaches its finale.

Here's an overview of the true story behind The Hack.

The Hack true story: The real events behind the ITV drama

What was the phone-hacking scandal about?

The phone-hacking scandal concerned journalists and private investigators who illegally accessed the voicemails of public figures in order to mine for tabloid gossip stories.

This was made possible by the somewhat primitive technology of the time, in which someone was able to access their voicemail by calling their number and entering a pin code – which often wasn't changed from the easily guessable default setting.

This practice was most notably undertaken at Sunday tabloid News of the World, which shut down in disgrace amid the controversy, but other publications have also been accused.

How was phone-hacking exposed?

The phone-hacking scandal was originally the story of Nick Davies, a freelance investigative reporter who frequently worked for The Guardian.

He was tipped off to the practice of phone-hacking by a mystery source known as Mr Apollo, who is thought to be a recognisable figure in British culture, but their identity has never been disclosed by Davies.

The Hack screenwriter Jack Thorne told an audience at an advance screening of the series that he felt an even bigger story than the hacking itself was the reaction to Davies's reporting.

Thorne stopped short of calling it complicity, but did argue that there was an obvious resistance from other British publications to entertaining or carrying forward the story – and The Guardian itself faced a near-existential backlash.

Then-editor Alan Rusbridger also attended the screening, and told crowds that "your job as an editor is, if you've got brilliant journalists working for you, to get the story into the paper and to defend it".

That's why he stood by Davies reporting under immense pressure from rival publications and the political establishment, when a more easily intimidated editor may have offered a formal retraction of all claims.

"The whole saga took about five years," recalled Rusbridger. "It was really only when the New York Times came in [that things improved]... I said, 'Look, we need help here because everyone is doing their best to ignore this story'."

The New York Times put its considerable resources behind researching phone-hacking in the UK, spending six months investigating for a bombshell article that made the issue "unignorable" (in Rusbridger's view).

He continued: "But it was a scary period. It told you something about Britain, about power, about the power of Rupert Murdoch and the way that people were frightened by him, quite reasonably... That's a very bad and unhealthy thing to happen in a democracy."

Who was Daniel Morgan?

Daniel Morgan was a private investigator who was violently murdered in a London pub car park in March 1987, by way of an axe attack.

Almost four decades later, the grisly case has never been solved – and the failure to identify a culprit has been a point of embarrassment and controversy for the Metropolitan Police.

Morgan's family say that the only Met Police detective they trusted was DCS David Cook (portrayed by Robert Carlyle), but his case against suspect Jonathan Rees fell apart and Rees was acquitted.

How is Daniel Morgan's case linked to phone-hacking?

Daniel Morgan's former business partner Jonathan Rees was also accused of wrongdoing in the News of the World's scandal, described by Nick Davies in The Guardian as running an "empire of tabloid corruption".

This included allegations that he associated himself with corrupt police officers and obtained confidential information for the Sunday paper, which at the height of his power was said to be paying him an eye-watering £150,000 per year.

Rees had previously been found guilty of conspiring to pervert the course of justice by arranging to plant cocaine on a woman and he was jailed for seven years. A key detail in the case against News of the World was that the paper had re-employed Rees after his conviction and imprisonment.

This brought intense pressure to the door of Andy Coulson, who had been editor of the newspaper at the time, and gone on to a powerful job inside 10 Downing Street as director of communications for Prime Minister David Cameron.

Coulson had initially claimed ignorance about any phone-hacking taking place at News of the World during his time as editor, but a judge later ruled that he had, in fact, "encouraged" it (via The Guardian).

Besides being Morgan's former business partner, Rees had also been investigated as a suspect in his murder on more than one occasion – standing trial for the charge in 2009, which ended in his acquittal.

Rees has always strongly denied being involved in Morgan's murder. When asked by the BBC in 2021 whether he had killed Morgan, Rees replied: "No. For what motive? Danny was my friend... he taught me a lot and earned the firm a lot of money.

"It was a partnership. And so the more he brings in, the more I bring in, the more profits we get to share at the end of the year. And it worked well. So him dying caused me a massive amount of grief, financially and business-wise, because the partnership ceased to exist."

Furthermore, Rees and two associates, Glenn and Gary Vian, were awarded damages of £414,000 from a malicious prosecution suit against the Metropolitan Police over its handling of the Daniel Morgan case against them.

What is the importance of The Hack?

Screenwriter Jack Thorne said that the importance of The Hack relates to how the phone-hacking scandal contributed to a major erosion of trust in the mainstream media.

"When I grew up, if Trevor McDonald said something on ITV News, or if someone said it on BBC One at nine o'clock, I trusted every word that was said," he said at a screening of The Hack.

"And now we're living in a world where no one seems to trust anything; where everything is about what point of view you sit at in terms of which journalists you listen to – and that idea of fact is really under threat.

"And I think we need to be asking, how did that happen? And I don't think it's just the result of [the phone-hacking scandal]. I think it's the result of a number of different things, but this was a hugely contributing factor."

The Hack producer Joe Williams added that themes of invasion into privacy are "even more relevant" now, with concerns over the privacy of individuals amid rapid technological advancement.

The Hack is available to watch now on ITVX and airs Wednesdays at 9pm on ITV1.

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