Nick Davies's Blog, page 16

John Yates's phone-hacking testimony leaves some unanswered questions

Nick Davies analyses the Metropolitan police assistant commissioner's evidence to the select committee

Evidence given by John Yates, the Metropolitan police assistant commissioner, to the home affairs select committee left a number of unanswered questions about his handling of the phone-hacking investigation.

Continue reading...

Nick Davies on phone hacking and the police – video

The Guardian's Nick Davies, who has reported extensively on the phone-hacking scandal, gives his views on the Met's evidence at the home affairs select committee

Nick DaviesShehani Fernando

John Yates's phone-hacking testimony leaves some unanswered questions

Nick Davies analyses the Metropolitan police assistant commissioner's evidence to the select committee

Evidence given by John Yates, the Metropolitan police assistant commissioner, to the home affairs select committee left a number of unanswered questions about his handling of the phone-hacking investigation.

His actions in July 2009

On 9 July 2009, the Guardian published a story that revived the hacking affair. Later that day, Yates announced that there were no grounds to reopen the original inquiry and said the News of the World's hacking had had few victims. There are several difficulties with this.

Yates was asked by the commissioner to "establish the facts". It is clear that he failed to do so. On Tuesday, he conceded that he had spent only eight hours doing so; that he had not spoken to Andy Hayman, the former assistant commissioner who oversaw the original inquiry; nor to Peter Clarke, the former deputy assistant commissioner who ran it; nor had he taken any legal advice; nor had he discovered the contents of the material seized from the News of the World's investigator, Glenn Mulcaire, in August 2006. This is now known to include 11,000 pages of Mulcaire's hand-written notes, computer records and tape recordings of intercepted messages.

Yates' statement itself appears to be misleading. If he had not established the facts, he was in no position to judge whether or not the inquiry should be reopened, nor to make public any conclusion about the number of people who had been victims.

His current defence of that statement does not appear to hold water. He says his task was simply "to establish the facts about the Guardian article. Is there anything new we are not aware of? The plain fact is that there was not."

If the Met police did not know the contents of the seized material, then the Guardian article was indeed telling them new things that they were not aware of – for example, that there were thousands of victims, and that the former deputy prime minister John Prescott was among those targeted.

If, on the other hand, the Met police did know the contents of the seized material, then Yates had no basis for saying there were very few victims and claiming there was no evidence that Prescott had been hacked.

His actions in September 2010.

On 1 September, the New York Times published a lengthy article including quotes from two former News of the World journalists – one named, one anonymous – which clearly indicated that hacking was widespread and well-known at the paper. Amid a political storm, Yates agreed to look at new evidence to see if it justified any further prosecution. Again, he has a series of difficulties.

First, it is difficult to understand why, knowing that Scotland Yard was in possession of the mass of material seized from Mulcaire and knowing that this had never been properly searched for evidence, he ruled that only "new" evidence should be explored. The current inquiry, Operation Weeting, has since found numerous leads about previously unidentified victims and alleged perpetrators in this material.

Second, the detectives who interviewed the few journalists willing to give evidence insisted on treating them as suspects, not as witnesses, warning them that anything they said might be used in evidence against them. One who had previously been willing to speak, Sean Hoare, refused to answer questions. Another, Paul McMullan, challenged them to arrest him if they really wanted to treat him as a suspect. The crown prosecution service later concluded this inquiry had found no new evidence to justify any prosecution.

Yates has admitted that during this time, he continued to have social meetings with senior journalists from the News of the World, but he told the committee that this was acceptable because "I have never investigated these matters. They have come under my oversight, but there has never been an investigation that I have led." He describes the inquiries made following the New York Times story as "a scoping study", not an investigation. He did not refer to the fact that the detective who led this operation was his own staff officer, Det Supt Dean Hayden.

Mobile phone companies

In September last year, Yates told the home affairs committee that police had "ensured" that mobile phone companies had warned all customers who had been identified as victims of hacking. In May this year, witnesses from the phone companies confirmed to the committee a Guardian disclosure that, in fact, none of them had been told to warn victims among their customers. All but one had followed normal protocol and kept their findings confidential because of the police inquiries.

Yates told the committee there was "a range of correspondence" between police and the phone companies. "In retrospect, it may not have been followed through in the way that it should have been," he said.

Legal advice from the Crown Prosecution Service

On four occasions, Yates has told parliament that prosecutors told police in 2006 that they must adopt a narrow interpretation of the law: that they needed to prove not only that voicemail had been intercepted but also that this had been done before the message had been heard by its intended recipient. He referred to this again on Tuesday. This is important because Yates has used this to justify his claim that the original inquiry found only ten or 12 victims of hacking.

This is directly contradicted by the current director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer, who has told the committee that, at an early stage of the original inquiry, an in-house lawyer at the CPS did raise this interpretation but added that it was "very much untested, and further consideration will need to be given to this". Later, according to Starmer, a senior barrister was appointed to run the prosecution and "he is clear that he did not at any stage give a definitive view that the narrow interpretation was the only possible interpretation". Yates, by contrast, earlier this year told the committee that the advice to adopt the narrow interpretation was "unequivocal".

John YatesPhone hackingNews of the WorldMetropolitan policePoliceNewspapers & magazinesNational newspapersNewspapersNick Davies
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Gordon Brown condemns 'disgusting work' of News International journalists

Former PM 'genuinely shocked' to discover journalists tried to access his voicemail and obtained information from his bank account and son's medical records

Follow all the latest developments in the phone-hacking scandal on our live blog

The former prime minister Gordon Brown has condemned "the most disgusting work" of News International journalists for using known criminals to invade the privacy and feelings of ordinary people, and accused the company of abusing its power for political gain.

Brown was reacting to revelations that News International journalists had attempted to access his voicemail and had obtained information from his bank account, his legal file and his family's medical records.

"I'm genuinely shocked to find that this happened. If I – with all the protection and all the defences that a chancellor or a prime minister has – can be so vulnerable to unscrupulous and unlawful tactics, what about the ordinary citizen?

"I find it quite incredible that a supposedly reputable organisation makes its money at the expense of ordinary people."

In an interview with the BBC and the Guardian, Brown confirmed that shortly after the birth of his son Fraser in October 2006, Rebekah Brooks, then editor of the Sun, telephoned his wife Sarah to say the paper had obtained details from the boy's medical records, revealing that he was suspected to be suffering from cystic fibrosis.

Brown said he had never wanted his children's lives to be the subject of publicity. "I have never talked publicly about Fraser's condition. Obviously we wanted to keep that private. As a parent, you want to do your best by your children."

Asked how he and his wife had reacted to the call, he said: "In tears. Your son is going to be broadcast across the media. Sarah and I were incredibly upset."

Brown said he had no idea how the Sun had obtained the information and questioned the paper's claim last night that this had been done legitimately.

"They will have to explain themselves. I can't think of any way that the medical condition of a child can be put into the public domain legitimately unless the doctor makes a public statement or the family make a statement.

"I don't know how it appeared. The fact is that it did appear. It appeared in the Sun."

He said he had known at the time that his bank account had been penetrated by the Sunday Times but had not understood that News International had relied on the help of criminals.

"I had my bank account broken into. I had my legal files effectively broken into. My tax returns went missing at one point. Medical records were broken into. I don't know how this happened.

"I do know that in two instances there is absolute proof that News International hired people to do this and the people who are doing this are criminals, known criminals in some cases with records of violence and fraud."

The Guardian previously has disclosed:

• That the News of the World hired a private investigator, Jonathan Rees, who had a history of corrupt dealings with police officers and who had been jailed for plotting to plant cocaine on a woman so that she would lose custody of her children.

• That the Sunday Times "blagged" - obtained private information illegally, normally by impersonating someone on the phone - Brown's details from a London law firm by using the skills of a conman named Barry Beardall, who was subsequently jailed for fraud.

• And that the Sunday Times repeatedly hired a former actor, John Ford, who specialised in blagging information from confidential databases, potentially in breach of the Data Protection Act.

Brown said he had complained to the editor of the Sunday Times, John Witherow, when he discovered in January 2000 that the paper had blagged information from his bank account, but Witherow had not taken sufficient action.

"There was no support going to come from the editor of the Sunday Times in dealing with the indiscipline among his reporters. This was a culture in the Sunday Times and other newspapers in News International, where they really exploited people."

Brown said that as prime minister he had wanted to set up a judicial inquiry. "I came to the conclusion that the evidence was becoming so overwhelming about the underhand tactics of News International using these private investigators to trawl through people's lives, particularly the lives of people who were completely defenceless, I thought we had to have a judicial inquiry." Senior officials, however, had blocked the plan.

He said News International had attempted to interfere in his government's policy on the BBC, on the media regulator Ofcom and generally in pursuit of their commercial interests.

"We stood up to News International and refused to support their commercial ambitions when we thought they were against the public interest." He suggested this was part of the reason why its newspapers had attacked his government.

"News International pursued an incredibly aggressive agenda in the last year. News International were distorting the news in a way that was designed to pursue a particular political cause. This was an abuse of their power for political gain.

"The record will show that some people at News International abused their power. There is absolutely no doubt that News International were trying to influence policy. This is an issue about the abuse of political power as well as the abuse of civil liberties."

• If you wish to post comments on the phone-hacking scandal, please do so on our live blog

Phone hackingGordon BrownNewspapers & magazinesNational newspapersNews InternationalNewspapersThe SunSunday TimesJohn WitherowRebekah BrooksNick Davies
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Evidence of illegal data checks on Gordon Brown buried by 2005 ruling

Judge ruled that proposed trial based on key discoveries by Plymouth police would be a waste of taxpayers' money

An unexpected ruling by a judge six years ago effectively covered up the chance to publicly expose evidence of the illegal targeting of Gordon Brown, which had been unearthed by a startled team of provincial detectives.

Operation Reproof, by Plymouth police, revealed the first of what became many systematic attempts to gain illegal confidential information on the prime minister and his family, but their findings were suppressed.

The Guardian has now been able to document the facts.

Files buried in police archives detail the discovery of an extraordinary nationwide network of private investigators, whom a corrupt local police officer was feeding with information filched from the police national computer (PNC).

To the detectives' surprise, the targets included the then chancellor of the exchequer, listed by his full name, James Gordon Brown and date of birth, as well as two other Labour politicians.

They were the chancellor's close colleague, the agriculture minister Nick Brown, plus the embattled MP for Reading West, Martin Salter, who at the time of the PNC break-in had been publicly put on an "enemies list" by the then News of the World editor, Rebekah Brooks.

An Exeter detective constable, Phil Diss, was covertly performing PNC checks, which were subsequently sold on to private investigators in bulk, for as little as £40 or even £20 a time.

Gordon Brown's office were privately warned in 2003 at the time of discovery of the illegal data checks, according to sources familiar with the case. So too were Nick Brown and Salter.

Diss, a popular and long-serving police officer, used his official access to the PNC to supply results to his former boss, a retired police inspector, who ran a commercial investigation agency in Exmouth, servicing other private detectives across the country.

SAS Investigations in Exmouth gleaned material from a stable of several local police officers and civil servants able to get into official databases, containing criminal records, other police intelligence and social security details

The purchaser of information on the three Labour politicians was Glen Lawson, another private detective in Newcastle upon Tyne, according to police records and court transcripts obtained by the Guardian.

Lawson, who still trades in Tyneside under the name Abbey Investigations, refuses to say which journalists contracted him to pursue Gordon Brown and other members of the Labour government. He told the Guardian at the weekend: "I am not going to make any comment".

Lawson was raided on 26 February 2003 by Devon and Cornwall police and his files seized. He himself was not charged, the court was later told, because of a CPS decision to try to avoid excessive prosecution delays.

But the evidence involving Gordon Brown did form part of the Crown case against Diss and his former boss, Alan Stidwill of SAS Investigations. Eventually, six people were charged with offences involving misconduct in public office after a three-year investigation across the country called Operation Reproof.

It strained the budget of Devon and Cornwall police, forcing them to agree to limit the range of defendants and to focus research on their own West Country area. But, a police spokesman told the Guardian this week, as far as those six were concerned: "We thought we had a strong case."

The police team were then surprised and upset when Judge Paul Darlow refused in 2005 to regard the issue as sufficiently serious to go to trial. He prevented a jury from hearing the case, saying the alleged behaviour was too trivial to justify criminal misconduct charges, and the proposed trial would be a waste of public money.

The papers in front of him identified the two ministers and an MP. Darlow specifically referred at a pre-trial hearing to the fact that "particulars in respect of the chancellor of the exchequer were sought and obtained".

But he nonetheless accepted defence claims that the illegal PNC information had been primarily passed to respectable insurance companies, finance houses and other detective agencies, in order to prevent fraud.

He asserted that an eight-week trial might cost as much as £1m in legal fees: "In my judgment it is not a proportionate use of valuable resources to prosecute these matters," he said.

As a result, all the defendants were formally acquitted, and none of the evidence was made public.

Stidwill, whose counsel maintained he had no idea the names being checked belonged to politicians, said after being cleared: "It has been a dreadful waste of taxpayers' money. We've been to court 13 or 14 times over that period and treated like criminals. It's had a terrible effect on us all."

The PNC checks

PNC checks were made by detective constable Diss on three Labour politicians, according to police interview transcripts obtained by the Guardian. All were in late 2000.

• The first, on 13 September 2000, was on Martin Salter, the Labour MP for Reading West.

Salter had displeased Rebekah Brooks, then News of the World editor. He refused her request to support her notorious campaign for Sarah's Law to "protect us from pervs". Shortly afterwards, on 24 September 2000, NoW readers were urged to pillory him personally in a "naming and shaming" stunt.

Salter says: "She responded with some foul personal attacks so typical of the bullying style of the former NoW. I remember canvassing that Sunday morning and it was particularly unpleasant."

False rumours had been circulated earlier in the year by opponents in his constituency that he had convictions for cannabis and GBH. He had also made no secret of the fact that he had smoked cannabis in the past and believed in its decriminalisation.

• A few days later, on 18 September, DC Diss was asked to do another check, this time on Nick Brown, the agriculture minister and Labour MP for Newcastle East who had previously been "outed" as gay by the News of the World. Nick Brown had just been tipped as Gordon Brown's campaign manager in a rumoured leadership bid attempt to unseat Tony Blair.

• The third occasion came two months later, on 16 November, when a check was requested on "James Gordon Brown". The Murdoch papers were at that point taking Blair's side in his continuing feud with Gordon Brown.

All the requests came from Glen Lawson at Abbey Investigations in Newcastle upon Tyne, who paid £20 or £40 a time, according to the seized invoices. Each time, the answer "no trace" was faxed over to him.

Lawson refuses to identify his customer, but the court was told it was believed to be a newspaper.

Gordon BrownPoliceNewspapers & magazinesNational newspapersNewspapersNews InternationalDavid LeighNick Davies
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

News International papers targeted Gordon Brown

Newspapers obtained information from the former prime minister's bank account, legal file and family medical records

Journalists from across News International repeatedly targeted the former prime minister Gordon Brown, attempting to access his voicemail and obtaining information from his bank account and legal file as well as his family's medical records.

There is also evidence that a private investigator used a serving police officer to trawl the police national computer for information about him. That investigator also targeted another Labour MP who was the subject of hostile inquiries by the News of the World, but it is not confirmed whether News International was specifically involved in trawling police computers for information on Brown.

Separately, Brown's tax paperwork was taken from his accountant's office apparently by hacking into the firm's computer. This was passed to another newspaper.

Brown was targeted during a period of more than 10 years, both as chancellor of the exchequer and as prime minister. Some of the activity clearly was illegal. Other incidents breached his privacy but not the law. An investigation by the Guardian has found that:

• Scotland Yard has discovered references to Brown and his wife, Sarah, in paperwork seized from Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator who specialised in phone hacking for the News of the World.

• Abbey National bank found evidence suggesting that a "blagger" acting for the Sunday Times on six occasions posed as Brown and gained details from his account.

• London lawyers Allen & Overy were tricked into handing over details from his file by a conman working for the Sunday Times.

• Details from his infant son's medical records were obtained by the Sun, who published a story about the child's serious illness.

Brown joins a long list of Labour politicians who are known to have been targeted by private investigators working for News International, including the former prime minister Tony Blair and his media adviser Alastair Campbell, the former deputy prime minister John Prescott and his political adviser Joan Hammell, Peter Mandelson as trade secretary, Jack Straw and David Blunkett as home secretaries, Tessa Jowell as media secretary and her special adviser Bill Bush, and Chris Bryant as minister for Europe.

The sheer scale of the data assault on Brown is unusual, with evidence of attempts to obtain his legal, financial, tax, medical and police records as well as to listen to his voicemail. All of these incidents are linked to media organisations. In many cases, there is evidence of a link to News International.

Scotland Yard recently wrote separately to Brown and to his wife to tell them that their details had been found in evidence collected by Operation Weeting, the special inquiry into phone hacking at the News of the World. It is believed that this refers to handwritten notes kept by Mulcaire, which were seized by police in August 2006 and never previously investigated. Brown last year asked Scotland Yard if there was evidence he had been targeted by the private investigator and was told there was none.

Journalists who have worked at News International say they believe Brown's personal bank account was accessed on several occasions while he was chancellor. An internal inquiry by Abbey National's fraud department found that during January 2000 someone acting on behalf of the Sunday Times contacted their Bradford call centre six times, posing as Brown, and succeeded in extracting details from his account.

Abbey National's senior lawyer sent a summary of their findings to the editor of the Sunday Times, John Witherow, concluding: "On the basis of these facts and inquiries, I am drawn to the conclusion that someone from the Sunday Times or acting on its behalf has masqueraded as Mr Brown for the purpose of obtaining information from Abbey National by deception."

Abbey National were not able to identify the bogus caller who tricked their staff. It is a matter of public record that a Sunday Times reporter frequently used the services of a former actor, John Ford, who specialised in "blagging" confidential data from banks, phone companies and the Inland Revenue (now HM Revenue & Customs).

Also in January 2000, one of the paper's reporters used a conman named Barry Beardall, who was subsequently jailed for fraud, to trick staff at Allen & Overy into handing over details from his personal file.

A tape made by Beardall at the time reveals that he claimed to be an accountant from the "Dealson group of companies" and that they were interested in buying Brown's flat. Beardall also practised trickery in an attempt to provide Sunday Times stories about Blair, when he was prime minister, and Labour's candidate for the mayor of London, Frank Dobson.

Confidential health records for Brown's family have reached the media on two different occasions. In October 2006, the then editor of the Sun, Rebekah Brooks, contacted the Browns to tell them that they had obtained details from the medical file of their four-month-old son, Fraser, which revealed his cystic fibrosis.

This appears to have been a clear breach of the Data Protection Act, which would allow such a disclosure only if it were in the public interest. Friends of the Browns say the call caused them immense distress, since they were only coming to terms with the diagnosis, which had not been confirmed. The Sun published the story.

David Muir, one of Brown's most senior advisers at No 10, said: "They were contacted by Rebekah Brooks, who told them that they had information that Fraser had cystic fibrosis, which was a matter that they, the family, were just getting their heads around at the time and dealing with. They didn't know how Rebekah came across this information and now, what's come to light, it was obtained by what appeared to be illegal methods."

Five years earlier, when their first child, Jennifer, was born on 28 December 2001, a small group of specialist doctors and nurses was aware that she had suffered a brain haemorrhage and was dying. By some means which has not been discovered, this highly sensitive information was obtained by news organisations, who published it over the weekend before Jennifer died, on Monday 6 January 2002.

In 2003, Devon and Cornwall police discovered that one of their junior officers was providing information from the police national computer to a network of private investigators. The Guardian has established that one of these investigators, Glen Lawson of Abbey Investigations in Newcastle upon Tyne, used this contact to commission a search of police records for information about Brown on 16 November 2000. Lawson also commissioned searches related to two other Labour MPs, Nick Brown and Martin Salter.

Lawson made these searches on behalf of journalists, a previously unreported court hearing was told. Transcripts obtained by the Guardian show that the search on Martin Salter was made at a time when the News of the World, then edited by Brooks, was attacking him for refusing to support the paper's notorious "Sarah's law" campaign to name paedophiles. Lawson currently refuses to name the journalists who commissioned him.

An attempt to prosecute this network was blocked by a West Country judge, Paul Darlow, who shocked police by ruling that it would be a misuse of public money to pursue the case. However, Devon and Cornwall police contacted the office of the then chancellor to warn him that he had been a victim, as they also did with his two Labour colleagues.

Brown's tax paperwork was obtained from the offices of his accountants, Auerbach Hope, in late 1998.

The first sign that the records had been taken came when a journalist from the now defunct Sunday Business called the accountants to say that they had been passed a copy of the records, including a schedule of Brown's income for the most recent year. The journalist acknowledged that the paperwork showed no sign of any kind of wrongdoing on Brown's part but wanted to do a story about the fact that it had been stolen.

Police came and found no sign of any break-in. The originals of the documents were still in Brown's file, which ruled out the possibility that they had been taken from the firm's dustbins.

Auerbach Hope discounted theft by an insider on the grounds that they would have stolen paperwork which showed wrongdoing and thus had greater media value. They concluded that the most likely explanation was that somebody had hacked into their computer systems, specifically targeting Gordon Brown.

Senior Labour figures also strongly suspect that a news organisation broke the law to obtain the emails that led to the resignation in April 2009 of Brown's close aide Damian McBride. The emails, which disclosed a scheme to smear Tory MPs, had been exchanged between McBride and a Labour party activist, Derek Draper. The Labour figures believe that the emails were hacked from Draper's computer and that their contents were then sent to the political blogger Guido Fawkes, whose stories were then followed by Fleet Street.News International said in a statement: "We note the allegations made today concerning the reporting of matters relating to Gordon Brown. So that we can investigate these matters further, we ask that all information concerning these allegations is provided to us."

Phone hackingGordon BrownThe SunSunday TimesNews InternationalNewspapers & magazinesNational newspapersNewspapersNick DaviesDavid Leigh
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Prince Charles and Camilla warned over phone hacking

Palace confirms police recently approached couple to warn them they were likely targets of News of the World private investigator

Police have warned Buckingham Palace that they have found evidence that the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall may have had their voicemail hacked by the News of the World.

The heir to the throne and his wife are among at least 10 members of the royal household who have now been warned they were targeted for hacking, according to police records obtained by the Guardian. Only five had previously been identified.

A palace source on Monday confirmed to the Guardian that the prince and the duchess had been approached by police recently to be warned that they had been identified as likely targets of the News of the World's specialist phone-hacker, Glenn Mulcaire.

The revelation comes as the BBC disclosed that the emails which News International handed to Scotland Yard in June include evidence that the paper had paid bribes to a royal protection officer in order to obtain private phone numbers for the royal household.

It is believed that personal phone details for Prince Charles and Camilla have been found among the 11,000 pages of handwritten notes that were kept by Mulcaire and which were seized by the original Scotland Yard inquiry in August 2006.

The palace source said: "The question that has to be answered is: if somebody had access to this evidence back then, why didn't they do something about it?"

Previous statements by police have identified only five royal victims – Prince William, Prince Harry and three members of staff who were named in the trial of the News of the World's royal correspondent, Clive Goodman, in January 2007.

In response to a Freedom of Information request from the Guardian, Scotland Yard has now revealed that it warned a total of 10 royal victims. Eight were warned at the time of the original police inquiry in 2006. Two others were warned only after the Guardian revived the story in July 2009.

It is not clear whether Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, are among the 10 victims to which its records referred. The palace source suggested that they had been warned only recently.

The remaining unidentified victims are thought to be members of the royal family, not staff. The prosecution strategy at the time of the trial was to name staff but not family.

Paperwork held by the Crown Prosecution Service reveals that police and prosecutors adopted a deliberate strategy to "ringfence" the evidence they presented in court in order to suppress the names of particularly prominent victims, including members of the royal family.

Scotland Yard took more than 14 months to provide the information, which was originally requested under the Freedom of Information Act in April 2010.

Phone hackingNewspapers & magazinesNational newspapersNewspapersPrince CharlesCamilla Parker BowlesNews of the WorldNick Davies
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

News of the World: Prince Charles and Camilla warned over phone hacking

Palace confirms police recently approached couple to warn them they were likely targets of private investigator Glenn Mulcaire

Police have warned Buckingham Palace that they have found evidence that the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall may have had their voicemail hacked by the News of the World.

The heir to the throne and his wife are among at least 10 members of the royal household who have now been warned they were targeted for hacking, according to police records obtained by the Guardian. Only five had previously been identified.

A palace source on Monday confirmed to the Guardian that the prince and the duchess had been approached by police recently to be warned that they had been identified as likely targets of the News of the World's specialist phone-hacker, Glenn Mulcaire.

The revelation comes as the BBC disclosed that the emails which News International handed to Scotland Yard in June include evidence that the paper had paid bribes to a royal protection officer in order to obtain private phone numbers for the royal household.

It is believed that personal phone details for Prince Charles and Camilla have been found among the 11,000 pages of handwritten notes that were kept by Mulcaire and which were seized by the original Scotland Yard inquiry in August 2006.

The palace source said: "The question that has to be answered is: if somebody had access to this evidence back then, why didn't they do something about it?"

Previous statements by police have identified only five royal victims – Prince William, Prince Harry and three members of staff who were named in the trial of the News of the World's royal correspondent, Clive Goodman, in January 2007.

In response to a Freedom of Information request from the Guardian, Scotland Yard have now revealed that they warned a total of10 royal victims. Eight were warned at the time of the original police inquiry in 2006. Two others were warned only after the Guardian revived the story in July 2009.

It is not clear whether the prince and duchess are among the 10 victims to which their records referred. The palace source suggested that they had been warned only recently.

The remaining unidentified victims are thought to be members of the royal family, not staff. The prosecution strategy at the time of the trial was to name staff but not family.

Paperwork held by the Crown Prosecution Service reveals that police and prosecutors adopted a deliberate strategy to "ringfence" the evidence they presented in court in order to suppress the names of particularly prominent victims, including members of the royal family.

Scotland Yard took more than 14 months to provide the information, which was originally requested under the Freedom of Information Act in April 2010.

Phone hackingNewspapers & magazinesNational newspapersNewspapersPrince CharlesCamilla Parker BowlesNews of the WorldNick Davies
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Media Talk podcast: News of the World closes as News International implodes

After the shock closure of the News of the World, Dan Sabbagh hosts a discussion on the fallout from the phone-hacking scandal engulfing News International. He's joined by:

* Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger, who discussed with Downing Street officials David Cameron's employment of former News of the World editor Andy Coulson at No 10;

* Nick Davies, the Guardian reporter who broke the phone-hacking story. He tells us how the story emerged, and considers what revelations might still lie in store;

* Media commentator and former Daily Mirror editor Roy Greenslade, who assesses the prospects of a change of culture in tabloid journalism;

* Media Talk regular Janine Gibson mulls the future for the regulation of the press. Could the Guardian and other papers suffer as a result of exposing the behaviour at News International?

In order to avoid contempt of court in relation to arrests made in connection with phone-hacking, please leave any comments you have about the hacking scandal here.

Dan SabbaghAlan RusbridgerJanine GibsonRoy GreensladeNick DaviesIain Chambers

Phone hacking: Police probe suspected deletion of emails by NI executive

• 'Massive quantities' of archive allegedly deleted
• Emails believed to be between News of the World editors

Police are investigating evidence that a News International executive may have deleted millions of emails from an internal archive, in an apparent attempt to obstruct Scotland Yard's inquiry into the phone-hacking scandal.

The archive is believed to have reached back to January 2005 revealing daily contact between News of the World editors, reporters and outsiders, including private investigators. The messages are potentially highly valuable both for the police and for the numerous public figures who are suing News International.

According to legal sources close to the police inquiry, a senior executive is believed to have deleted 'massive quantities' of the archive on two separate occasions, leaving only a small fraction to be disclosed. One of the alleged deletions is said to have been made at the end of January this year, just as Scotland Yard was launching Operation Weeting, its new inquiry into the affair.

The allegation directly contradicts repeated claims from News International that it is co-operating fully with police in order to expose its history of illegal news-gathering. It is likely to be seen as evidence that the company could not pass a 'fit and proper person' test for its proposed purchase of BSkyB.

A Guardian investigation has found that, in addition to deleting emails, the company has also:

• infuriated police by leaking sensitive information in spite of an undertaking to police that it would keep it confidential; and

• risked prosecution for perverting the course of justice by trying to hide the contents of a senior reporter's desk after he was arrested by Weeting detectives in April.

News International originally claimed that the archive of emails did not exist. Last December, its Scottish editor, Bob Bird, told the trial of Tommy Sheridan in Glasgow that the emails had been lost en route to Mumbai. Also in December, the company's solicitor Julian Pike from Farrer and Co provided the high court with a statement claiming that it was unable to retrieve emails which were more than six months old.

The first hint that this was not true came in late January when News International handed Scotland Yard evidence which led to the immediate sacking of its news editor Ian Edmondson and to the launch of Operation Weeting. It was reported at the time that this evidence consisted of three old emails.

Three months later, on 23 March this year, Pike formally apologised to the high court and acknowledged that News International could locate emails as far back as 2005 and that no emails had ever been lost en route to Mumbai or anywhere else in India. In a signed statement seen by the Guardian, Pike said he had been misinformed by the News of the World's in-house lawyer, Tom Crone, who had told him that he, too, had been misled. He offered no explanation for the misleading evidence given by Bob Bird.

The original archive was said to contain half a terabyte of data - equivalent to 500 editions of Encyclopaedia Britannica. But police now believe that there was an effort to substantially destroy the archive before News International handed over their new evidence in January. They believe they have identified the executive responsible by following an electronic audit trail. They have attempted to retrieve the data which they fear was lost. The Crown Prosecution Service is believed to have been asked whether the executive can be charged with perverting the course of justice.

At the heart of the affair is a specialist data company, Essential Computing, based in Clevedon, near Bristol. Staff there have been interviewed by Operation Weeting. One source speculated that it was this company which had compelled News International to admit that the archive existed.

The Guardian understands that Essential Computing has co-operated with police and has provided evidence about an alleged attempt by the News International executive to destroy part of the archive while they were working with it. This is said to have happened after the executive discovered that the company retained material of which News International was unaware.

The alleged deletion has caused tension between News International and Scotland Yard, who are also angry over recent leaks. When the Murdoch company handed over evidence of their journalists' involvement in bribing police officers in late June, they wanted to make a public announcement, claiming credit for their assistance to police. They were warned that this would interfere with inquiries and finally agreed that they would keep the entire matter confidential until early August, to allow police to make arrests. In the event, this week, a series of leaks has led Scotland Yard to conclude that News International breached the agreement.

There was friction too in April when Weeting detectives arrested a senior journalist, James Weatherup. When they went to the News of the World's office to search his desk, they found that all of its contents had been removed and lodged with a firm of solicitors, who initially refused to hand it over. The solicitors eventually complied. A file is believed to have been sent to the Crown Prosecution service seeking advice on whether anybody connected with the incident should be charged.

Phone hackingNews InternationalNews of the WorldNewspapers & magazinesNational newspapersNewspapersNick DaviesAmelia Hill
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds