Even the most ambitiously unethical tabloid hack couldn’t have aspired to stooping as low as hacking a missing girl’s mobile phone.

Then, having not only listened to the desperate voice messages left by distressed family members, proceeding to delete some messages to free up space for more, which not only gave the girl’s parents false hope that she was still alive (she wasn’t), but also risked damaging a police investigation.

This really is the pinnacle of Mount Scumbaggery in journalism.

Yet, despite this latest horrifying revelation in the whole phone-hacking saga, I still find myself able to say, with some confidence, that as a journalist I would gladly hack into a phone, in the right circumstances.

A problem in the coverage of the phone-hacking scandal is that phone-hacking seems to be presented in general terms, as though it is always bad–full stop. No ifs, no buts.

I find this to be problematic.

Journalism will, at times, present very difficult ethical and legal dilemmas. This is when the age-old tests of public interest, amount of prima facie evidence, and can I get the information elsewhere, are applied. Evidently some journalists ignored these tests and hacked phones purely to invade privacy for the sake of a spurious celebrity scoop. Or worse, as we are now finding out.

However, the vile activities of some tabloid hacks does not render all phone-hacking, or indeed other illegal activity on the part of journalists, unjustifiable.

It is necessary in a small minority of cases for journalists to act outside of the law.

Let’s say I’ve heard lots of reports from trusted sources that a senior politician is corrupt. I’ve seen a couple of documents that imply he’s engaged in corrupt behaviour, but there’s no smoking gun.

I’m then told that he phoned a senior businessman, to talk about taking a bung to sway an important decision he has to make. He left a voicemail with details of the dodgy deal.

With the evidence from trusted sources, the obvious public interest, and that there’s no clear alternative way of finding damning and conclusive evidence of wrongdoing, I would hack that phone.

Wouldn’t you?