Prescott in bid to access 'sealed' tapping records

Published on Saturday 11 July 2009 23:26

FORMER deputy prime minister John Prescott has opened a legal bid to obtain any evidence that his phones were hacked into by tabloid reporters.

Prescott said yesterday he has asked prosecutors to hand over proof that his voicemails were tapped by journalists.

The Labour MP has been named as one of the public figures allegedly targeted by the News of the World newspaper.

It has been alleged by the Guardian that the evidence of Prescott's phone taps formed part of an investigation by the Director of Public Prosecutions into the separate phone hacking of Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Footballers Association.

It was reported last week that Taylor agreed a 700,000 out-of-court settlement with the newspaper. The deal is reported to have included a clause barring the release of all evidence.

The claimed evidence in the Taylor case shows that celebrities such as actress Gwyneth Paltrow, PR guru Max Clifford, and London mayor Boris Johnson, also had their phones hacked.

News International said last night:

"It is untrue that officers found evidence of News Group staff, either themselves or using private investigators, hacking into 'thousands' of mobile phones," .

Prescott says he now wants to clear the matter up.

Writing in his blog yesterday, he said: "I've consulted with lawyers and feel the best way to establish what the News of the World was really up to is to access the evidence file they paid 700,000 to Gordon Taylor to effectively 'seal' from the public."

Prescott said that he had also written to the News of the World editor Colin Myler under the terms of the Data Protection Act to find out what information the paper had obtained about him.

Fresh revelations could be damaging for the Conservatives, whose director of communications, Andy Coulson, is a former News of the World editor.

He resigned when it emerged that royal reporter Clive Goodman had used phone taps to access messages left by Royal Family members. He has insisted that he did not know about or sanction the journalist's actions.

The paper said yesterday that the Taylor case was the only other occasion the use of voicemail hacking had been uncovered. News International said there was no other evidence to support allegations that any other journalists had accessed the voicemails of any individual, or instructed others to do so.

"It goes without saying that had the police uncovered such evidence, charges would have been brought against other News of the World personnel. Not only have there been no such charges, but the police have not considered it necessary to arrest or question any other member of News of the World staff."

The Guardian said that the News International statement marked the first acknowledgement by the organisation that it had reached a settlement with Mr Taylor.

"We are pleased that News International has, for the first time, confirmed its out-of-court settlement with Gordon Taylor over the illegal interception of his phone," it said.

"We note that the company claims to have known about the Taylor phone hacking since April 2008.

"It is surprising that – having assured parliament, the Press Complaints Commission and the public – that jailed royal reporter Clive Goodman was an 'aberration' and a one-off, the company chose to conceal this discovery, which involved other journalists, rather than put the record straight."

The Guardian also named another employee at the Professional Footballers Association who, it said, had been a victim of phone hacking, Jo Armstrong, the association's legal adviser.

The Guardian claimed that her silence had also been bought as part of the same legal settlement involving Taylor.