Phone hacking: Met to pass Glenn Mulcaire papers to litigants

Scotland Yard to hand over documents seized from private investigator to group of public figures who are suing News Group Scotland Yard will pass documents seized from Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator who was employed by the News of the World, to a group of public figures who are suing the paper’s owner News Group over alleged phone hacking, following a high court hearing on Monday. A high court judge ordered the Metropolitan police to hand some information from the Mulcaire archive, which includes 11,000 pages of documents and 111 recordings made by the private investigator, to lawyers acting for claimants including football agent Sky Andrew and actors Steve Coogan and Jude Law. The documents covered by the judge’s order are mainly limited to billing data showing phone calls between Mulcaire and the News of the World, details of contracts, invoices or payments made to the private investigator, and further pages from the notebooks kept by him that relate directly to the claimants. That information was seized during the Met’s original investigation into phone hacking, which resulted in Mulcaire being jailed in January 2007 along with Clive Goodman, the News of the World’s former royal editor. Michael Silverleaf QC, for News Group, the News International subsidiary that publishes the News of the World, pointed out the company has already admitted the charges in most cases and argued the claimants had the evidence they needed to win damages. The Met has already shown claimants pages from Mulcaire’s notebooks that name them and list their personal information, including, in many cases, the PIN numbers used to access their mobile phone messages and names and numbers of family and friends. Further disclosure would be expensive and would not effect the sum they received in damages, Silverleaf said. But lawyers for the claimants said the new information would cast light on the extent of illegal phone hacking at the News of the World and demonstrate there was a conspiracy between Mulcaire and News Group to methodically target their clients. Hugh Tomlinson QC, for the claimants, said: “It is entirely understandable… that News Group wants to limit the disclosure, partly for the good reason that it wants to limit costs and partly for the bad reason that it wants to put a lid on the disclosure of its wrongdoing going back over the years… The admissions [News Group] is prepared to make are of a very very narrow nature.” An attempt by a number of unidentified public figures to block the release of the documents, which could cast light on the full extent of phone hacking at the News of the World, failed. Justice Vos told Andrew Caldecott QC, who was representing the unidentified group, he did not believe the release of the documents, which will be redacted to remove the names of victims not so far named, would lead to their identities being disclosed. The names of any News of the World journalists mentioned in the documents but not already made public will also be redacted to protect the ongoing police enquiry into phone hacking. The Met is concerned that potential suspects would otherwise be tipped off. Scotland Yard also resisted attempts to pass the entire Mulcaire archive to lawyers acting for the claimants, saying it would take 30 weeks to redact the documents, to ensure the names and personal details of other parties were not disclosed, at a potential cost of £180,000. A fourth person, believed to be freelance journalist Terenia Taras, was arrested last week in Leeds as part of the Met’s new phone-hacking probe Operation Weeting , which began at the start of the year. Taras is the ex-partner of Greg Miskiw, who was assistant editor (news) at the paper. Ian Edmondson, who later did the same job but was sacked in February, was arrested in April. Two more senior News of World journalists, James Weatherup and chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck, were also arrested in April. All four were later released on police bail. Five test cases will be heard at a trial set for January 2012, which is likely to be used as a basis for determining damages for other claims when News Group admits liability. They include Andrew’s case. News International is seeking to settle other claims by setting up a compensation scheme, which it claims will pay more to claimants than they are likely to receive in damages from the courts. Separately, it also agreed last week to pay damages of £20,000 to former Sky Sports commentator Andy Gray as well as his legal costs. News International also apologised in court to actor Sienna Miller last month for a sustained campaign of harassment which lead to 11 stories being published about her by the News of the World. Miller was paid £100,000 in damages and her legal costs. • 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 News of the World News International National newspapers Newspapers Newspapers & magazines Metropolitan police Glenn Mulcaire James Robinson guardian.co.uk

Posted by on June 27, 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.