Phone hacking: Lord Prescott wins bid to challenge Met’s handling of case

Prescott, Chris Bryant, Brian Paddick and journalist Brendan Montague asked high court judge for judicial review Lord Prescott, the former deputy prime minister, on Monday won his latest bid to mount a legal challenge over the Metropolitan police’s handling of the News of the World phone-hacking case. He and three others – Labour MP Chris Bryant, former Scotland Yard deputy assistant commissioner Brian Paddick and journalist Brendan Montague – had asked a high court judge to give them the go-ahead for a judicial review. Mr Justice Foskett gave a ruling allowing their cases to go to a full hearing. The four, who believe they were victims of phone hacking, claim there were human rights breaches in the police handling of their cases. Three others including the former media, culture and sport secretary, Tessa Jowell, asked the court to be recognised as interested parties. Prescott and the other claimants put their case at a previous high court hearing earlier this month . A written submission by the claimants’ solicitors, Bindman and Co, said last autumn the police had told the high court they had given all of the claimants a complete summary of all of the relevant evidence in their possession. Yet it had now emerged that not one of the claimants had been given an accurate or complete account of the material which police held. The effect of this had been to protect News International from expense and embarrassment: “We share the disquiet of the public about the police’s motivation for playing down the scale of unlawful behaviour and the way in which News International has, as a result, been shielded.” The interception of Prescott’s messages, the court was told, was achieved by targeting the phone of his then chief of staff, Joan Hammell. Glenn Mulcaire had emailed an editorial executive at the News of the World on 28 April 2006 referring to 45 messages left on her phone by Prescott and providing detailed instructions about how to continue accessing Hammell’s phone. This was at a time when Prescott’s private life was under tabloid scrutiny. That email had finally been disclosed by the News of the World on 26 January this year. The submission concludes: “The Metropolitan police misled the claimants and the wider public by stating that there was only ‘a handful’ of victims; and that, where there was evidence of hacking, victims were told. “When those who thought they might have been victims contacted the police for fuller information, many were wrongly told that there was no evidence of hacking. “It has now emerged that, contrary to the picture painted by the police, that telephone interception was extremely widespread.” The police argued in court that, although there had been some failures, Operation Weeting, the fresh Scotland Yard phone-hacking investigation launched in January, had provided an adequate remedy and there was no case for a judicial review. James Lewis QC, for the Met, acknowledged “some operational shortcomings” and that some victims had not been told there was clear evidence of their messages being intercepted. He said the evidence in relation to these claimants had not been clear until very recently. Lewis said that, having seized 10,000 pages of notes from Mulcaire, the original inquiry in 2006 failed to enter the material on to a computer system or to search and index it. • To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly “for publication”. • To get the latest media news to your desktop or mobile, follow MediaGuardian on Twitter and Facebook . Phone hacking Newspapers & magazines National newspapers Newspapers News of the World News International John Prescott Amelia Hill guardian.co.uk

Posted by on May 23, 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.