The House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee held hearings regarding phone hacking by news media companies in March 2007, in July 2009, and again in July 2011. The 2007 inquiry regarding "Privacy and media intrusion" began shortly after Goodman and Mulcaire were sentenced. It was focused on activity at News of the World. On 6 March 2007, the then executive chairman of News International, Les Hinton, assured the Committee that a "full, rigorous internal inquiry" had been carried out and, to his knowledge, Goodman was the only person at News of the World that knew about hacking. Hinton said, "I believe absolutely that Andy Coulson did not have knowledge of what was going on." Asked whether Goodman was the only person who knew about the phone hacking, Hinton replied that he believed Goodman was.
