News International Offers Dead Girl's Family $4.7M

But the phone-hacking victims may want more
By Neal Colgrass,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 19, 2011 2:49 PM CDT
Rupert Murdoch's News International Offers Milly Dowler Family Millions in Phone Hacking Scandal
Rupert Murdoch, center, attempts to speak to the media after he held a meeting with the parents and sister of murdered school girl Milly Dowler in London, Friday, July 15, 2011.   (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

The price for illegal phone hacking has just skyrocketed for Rupert Murdoch. Seeking to settle a high-profile hacking case against Milly Dowler, a 13-year-old girl who was murdered in 2002, News International has offered her family roughly $4.7 million—a third of which would go to charity. But sources tell the Guardian that the family hasn't accepted yet and may want more.

Other celebrity figures have taken far less for having their phones hacked: Sienna Miller approved a $155,000 settlement and a British sports-radio personality accepted roughly $30,000. But Dowler's story shocked Britain this summer, when a Guardian investigation revealed that The News of the World had hacked into her phone and deleted messages after her disappearance, giving her family the notion she was still alive. Murdoch later met with the Dowlers and told them he was "very, very sorry." (More Rupert Murdoch stories.)

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