NoW publisher sued for £100,000 over alleged breach of anonymity agreement

Paper’s former publisher rejects claim, saying it cannot be sued over information provided to police in an ongoing investigation News Group Newspapers, former publisher of the defunct News of the World, is being sued for £100,000 by a prison warden’s brother who claims that a senior executive at the newspaper confirmed to police he was the source of leaked stories about the Soham killer Ian Huntley. John Capewell, the brother of a prison officer who worked at high security lock-up HMP Frankland in Durham where Huntley is incarcerated, is suing the newspaper publisher for allegedly breaching an anonymity agreement. Capewell, 47, has launched legal action against NGN claiming it broke the deal because Tom Crone, the former senior lawyer at NoW, confirmed that Capewell was the source of the stories, in a phone call to police officers investigating leaks from the prison in 2008. Lawyers representing Capewell believe the case is important because a newspaper has a duty to protect the identity of its sources. “It is Mr Capewell’s case that they [NGN] betrayed the trust of a confidential source who was seeking to exercise his freedom of speech to provide information of public interest,” said his legal representatives. “In doing so, Mr Capewell alleges that they have caused him to suffer the indignity and intrusion of a criminal trial, caused his reputation to be smeared and caused him to lose his job. Mr Capewell says that his life has been ruined.” NGN has applied to have the claim struck out, on the grounds that it cannot be sued over information provided to assist the police in an ongoing investigation. The paper also says police officers had already determined that Capewell was the source of information about HMS Frankland before officers approached Crone. Capewell had already been arrested by the time the News of the World was approached by the police. Capewell, 47, approached NoW in 2008 offering “anonymous information” about the prison in return for a sum of money, alleged to be £40,000 , although the publisher is not thought to have paid for the information. Capewell offered Chris Tate, a former senior reporter at the tabloid, information about “preferential treatment” being given to Huntley and, separately, claims of an alleged “sexual relationship” between a female warden and an inmate convicted of murder and several serious sexual offences involving minors. Capewell also gave the reporter details about an alleged plot by Muslim inmates to decapitate a prison warden. The NoW did not publish any of Capewell’s claims. However stablemate the Sun allegedly printed a story about Huntley based on the information just days after his first meeting with Tate. The Daily Mail published a similar story three weeks later. In September 2008 police launched an investigation into the source of the leaks from HMP Frankland after a dog walker found confidential prison documents bearing Capewell’s fingerprints – including the contract between Capewell and Tate –

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