Escort agency boss linked to George Osborne makes phone-hacking claims

Natalie Rowe tells Australia’s ABC News she was targeted by News of the World Natalie Rowe, the former escort agency boss who claimed to be friends with chancellor George Obsorne, has told an Australian broadcaster that her phone was hacked by the News of the World. She told ABC News that Scotland Yard has told her that her mobile phone number and other details appeared on notebooks seized from the home of Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator who was employed by the paper. Rowe, who ran an agency called Black Beauties in the 1990s, sold a story about the friendship with Osborne to the Sunday Mirror in 2005. She claimed at the time that she and Osborne had taken cocaine together. Obsorne has always denied this. Rowe told the ABC’s PM programme that she was “surprised” to see the same story appear in the News of the World on the same day. The paper was edited by Andy Coulson at the time. At the time the stories appeared Osborne issued a statement of denial: “The allegations are completely untrue and dredging up a photo from when I was 22 years old is pretty desperate stuff. This is merely part of an absurd smear campaign to divert attention from the issues that matter in this leadership contest and I am confident that people will not be distracted by this rubbish.” Both titles published an old picture of Rowe and Osborne together, arm in arm, with a white powder, which they alleged was cocaine, in the foreground. When the stories were published six years ago, Obsorne’s office dismissed them as a slur and said Rowe was a casual acquaintance whom the future chancellor barely knew. Speaking to ABC, Rowe repeated her claims about Obsorne taking illegal drugs. Rowe said: “George Osborne did take cocaine on that night.” Rowe’s solictor Mark Lewis has also given an interview to ABC. Noting that Coulson was editor of the News of the World, Lewis said: “I think that’s worth remembering because of the future relationship that we have between the Conservative party, the prime minister and Andy Coulson”. It has since emerged that David Cameron hired Coulson as the Conservative party’s communications director on Osborne’s advice. •

Posted by on September 12, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.