Senior Surrey detectives investigating the disappearance of Milly Dowler held two meetings with journalists from the News of the World and were shown evidence that the paper held information taken from the voicemails of the murdered schoolgirl.
An investigation by the Independent, which focuses on this crucial period of thephone-hacking scandal, reveals that the force subsequently failed to investigate or take action against the News International title.
One of the officers at the meetings was Craig Denholm, now Deputy Chief Constable of Surrey. He was the detective chief superintendent in charge of Operation Ruby, the codename for the investigation begun after the teenager disappeared on March 21, 2002.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission is investigating claims that a junior detective on Operation Ruby passed information gathered by the inquiry to the News of the World. According to Surrey police, the officer was removed from the investigation after he passed confidential information about it to a friend outside the force.
The Independent has confirmed the identity of the officer, who is still a member of the Surrey force. But his name is being withheld after a claim from his lawyers that identifying him could prove "catastrophic" for him and his family because of public anger at the hacking of Milly's phone.
The extent of the defunct Sunday paper's meddling in the Dowler inquiry raises new questions about how far up the executive ladder at News International knowledge of phone hacking had spread at this early stage, and why Surrey police decided not to follow up evidence that the NOTW had illegally obtained information relevant to one of the most high-profile inquiries in its history.
The failure to pursue the Sunday tabloid meant phone hacking by its journalists continued for a further four years until Scotland Yard arrested private investigator Glenn Mulcaire and the NOTW royal editor, Clive Goodman, in August 2006.
Both were later jailed.
Mark Lewis, the Dowler family's lawyer, said: "Questions have to be asked as to whether Surrey police were more concerned with selling papers than solving crimes.
"What was it with them that, when the public dialled 999, the police dialledNOTW?"
The Independent has established that, in April 2002 as police followed multiple leads, the NOTW approached the Surrey force and arranged two meetings during which it was made clear the paper had information that could only have come from messages on Milly's phone.
Two of the force's most senior detectives were at the meetings.
