Private eye hacked phones 'for several newspaper reporters'

Oliver Poole12 April 2012

The private detective paid by the News of the World to hack mobile phones admitted providing intercepts to several people at the newspaper, a court heard today.

The claim contradicts News International's insistence that the activity, in which voicemails were illegally accessed to provide information for articles, was the work of a "rogue reporter".

The revelation came on the first day of an application lodged by Sky Andrews, a leading football agent suing the newspaper's owner News Group for breach of privacy. He wants the Metropolitan police to release transcripts of messages left on his phone.

They were among evidence found when police raided the offices of Glenn Mulcaire, the investigator jailed for illegally listening to phone messages for members of the royal household.

According to papers put before the court, Mulcaire said he could not remember which journalist Mr Andrews's voicemail intercepts were for as he dealt with a number of different reporters at the newspaper.

Mr Andrews's lawyer, Jeremy Reed, said Mulcaire's testimony, if true, was "devastating" to the News of the World as it "suggests on the face of it that other journalists were involved".

In 2007 the newspaper's royal editor Clive Goodman was sentenced to four months in jail, and Mulcaire to six months, for unlawfully intercepting communications. More than 20 people are now believed to be taking legal action against the News of the World.

The case continues.

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