Lord Mandelson demands new tabloid hacking inquiry

Metropolitan police told to look into dark arts of private investigator Jonathan Rees Lord Mandelson has become the most influential Labour politician to demand the Metropolitan police deepens its investigation into unlawful newspaper practices after it was revealed his bank accounts had been targeted by a private investigator in the pay of tabloid journalists. Mandelson, the former business secretary and one of Tony Blair’s closest confidantes, contacted the Met on Thursday asking to know what information it holds on illegal targeting of his bank accounts, as well as those of his family. Friends of Mandelson noted that Jonathan Rees of Southern Investigations did not just work for News of the World, but also for the Daily Mirror, partly during the editorship of Piers Morgan. Now hosting a chatshow on CNN, Morgan edited the Mirror between 1995 and 2004. Scotland Yard has confirmed that a small team of officers, known as Operation Tuleta, is assessing whether to set up an investigation. They are understood to be examining a mass of material seized from Rees to see whether it contains evidence of lawbreaking on behalf of newspapers. The Met already has 45 detectives working on Operation Weeting, the separate phone hacking inquiry which began in January. In a recent interview in the Financial Times, Morgan declared his sympathy for Andy Coulson, who resigned as News of the World editor over phone hacking and then stood down as David Cameron’s communications chief, saying the allegations made it impossible for him to do his government job. Coulson insists he had no personal knowledge of phone hacking. Morgan said he had edited papers “where you hadn’t got a clue what’s going on half the time”. Last night a spokesman for Trinity Mirror said: “Many years ago some of our journalists used Southern Investigations. They were last used in 1999. Trinity Mirror’s position is clear. Our journalists work within the criminal law and the PCC code of conduct.” The Met has had access to surveillance data detailing Rees’s dealings with Fleet Street titles including the News of the World and the Daily Mirror. Mandelson’s intervention, expected to be followed by other former senior cabinet ministers, raises the seriousness of the phone hacking scandal to another level. He is determined that the police investigation does not focus solely into allegations of phone hacking undertaken on behalf of the News of the World by private investigator Glenn Mulcaire. He said: “It really isn’t acceptable to keep pointing the finger at one newspaper when, clearly, the use of unlawful means of investigating was, or is, widespread. This is a bigger issue than the wrongdoing of one rogue investigator and that’s why this whole issue should be pursued more widely. That is why I have contacted the Met police today to ask them what information they may hold from current or previous investigations.” Lord Prescott, the former deputy prime minister, called for a public inquiry into newspaper ethics, a call Downing Street will resist for as long as the police are conducting inquiries. He said the “criminal activity by our press” had polluted a number of institutions in the country, including the Met, which he said had refused to accept that phone hacking was widespread. “Having told me personally that my phone messages had not been tapped at all, there was no evidence, the new inquiry comes along and tells me there were 44 occasions. “You can’t trust the police if they are producing misleading information, deliberately so.” Tony Blair, named this week as one of the political figures targeted by Rees, said he was not going to contact the police personally. “I assume that if someone’s got something, they will get in touch with me,” he said. Phone hacking Newspapers & magazines National newspapers Newspapers News of the World News International Daily Mirror Trinity Mirror Peter Mandelson Crime Police John Prescott Patrick Wintour James Robinson guardian.co.uk

Posted by on June 9, 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.