Posts tagged Launch

A lawsuit alleging a police cover-up of phone hacking has been launched by one of Scotland Yard’s own former senior officers, Brian Paddick, together with the former Labour minister Chris Bryant.

The former deputy prime minister John Prescott and at least one other person are shortly expected to join the action, which has the potential to force open some of the Metropolitan police’s locked files.

The claim for judicial review filed today accuses assistant Met commissioner John Yates of making misleading statements to parliament and the public, and the police of failing to carry out a proper investigation.

The two who are suing, along with a third, freelance journalist Brendan Montague, claim to have been likely victims of the News of the World. They name five senior journalists who they say worked with the phone-hacking private detective Glenn Mulcaire at the time when Andy Coulson was editor.

The five are Ian Edmondson, Neville Thurlbeck, Ross Hall and Greg Miskiw.

Paddick, a former deputy assistant commissioner at the Met, feared interception after a tabloid story emerged that he had bought his partner an expensive watch while on holiday in Sydney. The claim says: “He had not told anyone apart from his partner about the purchase, but had to speak to the bank on his mobile phone … to allow the bar on his credit card to be lifted.”

Subsequently, another tabloid discovered Paddick’s then partner was on a particular transatlantic flight, and was able to accost him: “The inference must be that private information was obtained.”

Paddick says Scotland Yard denied last November having any information linking him to News of the World hacking. When pressed again, to his surprise they eventually admitted his “name and occupation” did in fact appear in the seized documents.

Bryant, Labour’s former Europe minister, says newspapers got hold of his father’s new phone number “only days after he had moved to a new house. His new number was not listed in the telephone directory or known to anyone other than close family members.” The claim adds: “Mr Bryant’s brother was visited at his school.”

The phone company Orange confirmed several illegal attempts had been made to access his mobile phone mailbox.

After five months of delay, police confirmed his name and address were in the hacking files but refused to give any further details. They refused to say whether his father had also been targeted.

Montague tried to sell a story about a celebrity chef to the Sunday Mirror rather than the News of the World, according to the claim. It alleges: “The news editor there warned him the News of the World may try to access his telephone records.”

Subsequently, T-Mobile told him a fake caller had obtained copies of his phone records.

Yates is personally accused in the claim of making a number of misleading statements, including to a Commons committee: “Yates insisted that all reasonable steps were taken to warn people when there was the ‘minutest possibility’ they had been hacked. That statement is not true.”

The claim adds that when Yates was asked if Bryant had been warned, he gave a “misleading impression” by saying that he was “in correspondence” with the politician.

The claim says police deliberately “ring-fenced” the investigation despite the “clear inference that numerous journalists at the News of the World and other tabloid newspapers were involved in hacking”.

Scotland Yard refuse to disclose how many people they had warned, because that would reveal that “only a small proportion” had in fact been notified, according to the claim filed by leading media QC Hugh Tomlinson.

Last week, Yates wrote to the Guardian about allegations made by Bryant. He said: “I strongly object to the reference … of Chris Bryant MP accusing me of giving a misleading account and stating in respect of part of my evidence to the home affairs select committee that ‘It was a fib’.

“I am writing to Chris Bryant indicating that the relevant paragraph is both wrong and defamatory and asking him not to repeat it.”

The actor and comedian Steve Coogan tonight joined the list of public figures who are taking legal action over alleged phone-hacking by the News of the World.

Coogan’s name, mobile phone number, account number and password were found in material seized by police from Mulcaire in August 2006. The Met have refused to approach and warn the owners of nearly 3,000 mobile phone numbers which they found in Mulcaire’s records. An increasing number of public figures are approaching the police to ask for themselves whether their names or personal details were among those held by the investigator.

Coogan’s solicitor, John Kelly of London law firm Schillings, earlier this year wrote to Scotland Yard on Coogan’s behalf. “They have written back and confirmed that Steve was a ‘person of interest’ to Mr Mulcaire, and we have now sent a letter before claim on his behalf,” Kelly said.

In separate developments today, other pending lawsuits increased the prospect of disclosure of key phone-hacking documents.

Court files show Mulcaire now faces orders to disclose the names of all News of the World employees involved with the hacking of former MP George Galloway and football agent Sky Andrew.

Both men are suing Mulcaire and the News of the World’s parent company, News Group, for breach of privacy.

Galloway’s claim says confidential messages from the Foreign Office dealing with the Middle East are among those which may have been intercepted.

Andrew’s claim details 22 occasions on which the News of the World’s investigator is said to have accessed his voicemail.

A fresh claim has also been lodged on behalf of Nicola Phillips, former assistant to the celebrity PR agent Max Clifford. Phillips is suing News Group for breach of privacy. She claims her voicemail was intercepted as part of a News of the World operation against Clifford.

News Group is disputing all three claims.