Man pretended to be Gordon Brown to get financial details

SOMEONE working for the Sunday Times called Abbey National pretending to be Gordon Brown to obtain details about the former prime minister’s finances, the paper’s editor has revealed.

John Witherow confirmed that the paper “blagged” information from the bank as part of an investigation in 2000 into the then-chancellor’s purchase of a flat from a company owned by the late media baron Robert Maxwell.

The Sunday Times has argued that the story was in the public interest and that this would provide a defence to any charges brought under the Data Protection Act for accessing personal details, the Leveson Inquiry into press standards heard yesterday.

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Mr Witherow said the paper used a businessman to discover from a firm of solicitors how much Mr Brown paid for the flat.

Robert Jay, QC, counsel to the inquiry, asked him: “Abbey National, which held Mr Brown’s mortgage for the flat, wrote to you alleging that someone had called its Bradford call centre six times pretending to be Mr Brown and was given information?”

Mr Witherow agreed: “That’s right.”

Mr Witherow said the Sunday Times sometimes used subterfuge for stories in the public interest, but did not carry out “fishing expeditions”.

He said the paper has employed blagging and impersonation, including employing an actor as part of a deception, but has never hacked phones.

The editor stressed that the Sunday Times always considered whether it was justified in publishing a story.

Meanwhile, Private Eye editor Ian Hislop argued it was in the public interest to expose former Royal Bank of Scotland boss Sir Fred Goodwin’s affair with an ex-colleague.

He told the inquiry: “Is that his private life? Or is it permissible to write about that on the grounds that perhaps when you’re taking major decisions involving risky financial manoeuvres, someone you’re sleeping with doesn’t say harshly, ‘You’re mad’ at set times?

“You can see I believe that there is a defence there.”

Mr Hislop rejected calls for statutory regulation of the press, saying there was already legislation in place to tackle abuses such as phone-hacking.

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