Timeline of Britain's phone-hacking scandal

In 2006 police arrest the News of the World's royal editor Clive Goodman and private detective Glenn Mulcaire over claims they intercepted mobile phone messages sent to members of the royal household.

2006

August 8 Police arrest the News of the World's royal editor Clive Goodman and private detective Glenn Mulcaire over claims they intercepted mobile phone messages sent to members of the royal household.

2007

January 26 Goodman is jailed for four months and Mulcaire for six months after they plead guilty to hacking into the phones of royal aides. Andy Coulson resigns as editor, saying he "deeply regrets" what happened but that he had known nothing about the practice. He takes a job as media chief for David Cameron's Conservative party months later.

2010

June 15 News Corp bids £7.8 billion (Dh46.2bn) for the 60.9 per cent of BSkyB that it does not already own. BSkyB rejects the 700-pence-per-share offer, saying it wants more than 800 pence.

2011

January 21 Coulson, now Downing Street communications director, quits over the phone-hacking row.

April 5 Detectives arrest the News of the World's former news editor Ian Edmondson and chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck on suspicion of conspiring to intercept phone messages.

July 4 Reports emerge that murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler had her phone hacked by Mulcaire after she went missing in 2002. Voicemails were deleted, giving police and her relatives false hope that she was alive.

July 6 Prime Minister David Cameron announces a public inquiry into the scandal.

July 10 The News of the World publishes its final edition under the headline: "Thank You and Goodbye". Murdoch flies to London to take personal charge of the scandal.

July 13 News Corp withdraws its bid for BSkyB.

July 15 Rebekah Brooks, head of Murdoch's British newspaper operation News International and editor of the News of the World at the time Dowler's phone was hacked, resigns.

July 17 The Metropolitan Police chief, Paul Stephenson, resigns over force's links to former News of the World deputy editor Neil Wallis. Brooks is arrested and bailed on suspicion of phone hacking and corruption.

July 18 Scotland Yard Assistant Commissioner John Yates, who refused in 2009 to reopen the police investigation into phone hacking, resigns. Former News of the World reporter Sean Hoare, the first person to publicly alleged that Coulson knew about phone hacking when he edited the paper, is found dead in "unexplained circumstances".