News of the World: Prince Charles and Camilla warned over phone hacking

Palace confirms police recently approached couple to warn them they were likely targets of private investigator Glenn Mulcaire Police have warned Buckingham Palace that they have found evidence that the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall may have had their voicemail hacked by the News of the World. The heir to the throne and his wife are among at least 10 members of the royal household who have now been warned they were targeted for hacking, according to police records obtained by the Guardian. Only five had previously been identified. A palace source on Monday confirmed to the Guardian that the prince and the duchess had been approached by police recently to be warned that they had been identified as likely targets of the News of the World’s specialist phone-hacker, Glenn Mulcaire. The revelation comes as the BBC disclosed that the emails which News International handed to Scotland Yard in June include evidence that the paper had paid bribes to a royal protection officer in order to obtain private phone numbers for the royal household. It is believed that personal phone details for Prince Charles and Camilla have been found among the 11,000 pages of handwritten notes that were kept by Mulcaire and which were seized by the original Scotland Yard inquiry in August 2006. The palace source said: “The question that has to be answered is: if somebody had access to this evidence back then, why didn’t they do something about it?” Previous statements by police have identified only five royal victims – Prince William, Prince Harry and three members of staff who were named in the trial of the News of the World’s royal correspondent, Clive Goodman, in January 2007. In response to a Freedom of Information request from the Guardian, Scotland Yard have now revealed that they warned a total of10 royal victims. Eight were warned at the time of the original police inquiry in 2006. Two others were warned only after the Guardian revived the story in July 2009. It is not clear whether the prince and duchess are among the 10 victims to which their records referred. The palace source suggested that they had been warned only recently. The remaining unidentified victims are thought to be members of the royal family, not staff. The prosecution strategy at the time of the trial was to name staff but not family. Paperwork held by the Crown Prosecution Service reveals that police and prosecutors adopted a deliberate strategy to “ringfence” the evidence they presented in court in order to suppress the names of particularly prominent victims, including members of the royal family. Scotland Yard took more than 14 months to provide the information, which was originally requested under the Freedom of Information Act in April 2010. Phone hacking Newspapers & magazines National newspapers Newspapers Prince Charles Camilla Parker Bowles News of the World Nick Davies guardian.co.uk

Posted by on July 11, 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.