Hugh Grant may have given up but now a former prime minister may sue a newspaper firm over phone hacking.
Gordon Brown says Rupert Murdoch’s firm News UK (formerly known as News Group Newspapers) may have intercepted his voice messages while he was Chancellor of the Exchequer between 2005 and 2007, and Prime Minister between 2007 and 2010.
He says civil court documents show the company deleted around 30,000 emails to stop police seeing them.
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News UK has accepted that journalists at the now-cancelled News of the World were involved in wrongdoing and has paid compensation to hundreds of phone hacking victims. The paper was closed in 2011 and police investigations were halted in 2015 after senior staff including former NoW editor Andy Coulson were convicted.
But cases brought by others who claimed they had been targeted by NoW stablemate The Sun have been settled by News UK without admitting liability.
Hugh Grant was one of those who settled, after discovering that if he won but the court awarded damages that were even a penny less than News UK’s settlement offer, he would have to pay the legal costs of both sides which he claimed would amount to almost £10 million.
But more than 40 other people are currently suing News UK for hacking their phones or unlawfully obtaining their private information.
There is likely to be a trial next year, in which a key question may be why News UK deleted more than 30 million emails in 2010 and 2011, when it knew it faced a police investigation over phone hacking – nine million of which were “irretrievably lost”, according to court documents.
News UK insists it was clearing out old computer servers, but claimants say it was deleting evidence, and have accused the company of inventing a false “security threat” to provide another reason for the deletions.
And there is a suggestion that after emails belonging to chief executive Rebekah Brooks were leaked, the company deleted her emails to stop it happening again. The leaked emails were allegedly passed to a third party who met and discussed them with Mr Brown.
That is why this former prime minister may sue a newspaper firm over phone hacking. He has not previously taken action against News UK but has said he is now considering it.
He said it would be a very serious matter if a prime minister’s phone was hacked by this newspaper company.
This could create a problem for Rupert Murdoch’s firm because if necessary, Mr Brown could probably claim it was a national security issue and get public money to pay his costs – meaning News UK would not be able to out-price him as it did Mr Grant.
News UK has denied the allegations against it, pointing out that many of the deleted emails had been backed up, recovered, and handed to police, and claiming that threats to the security of Rebekah Brooks’s emails had been believed to be real.
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Former prime minister may sue a newspaper firm over phone hacking
Hugh Grant may have given up but now a former prime minister may sue a newspaper firm over phone hacking.
Gordon Brown says Rupert Murdoch’s firm News UK (formerly known as News Group Newspapers) may have intercepted his voice messages while he was Chancellor of the Exchequer between 2005 and 2007, and Prime Minister between 2007 and 2010.
He says civil court documents show the company deleted around 30,000 emails to stop police seeing them.
Buy Cruel Britannia in print here. Buy the Cruel Britannia ebook here. Or just click on the image!
News UK has accepted that journalists at the now-cancelled News of the World were involved in wrongdoing and has paid compensation to hundreds of phone hacking victims. The paper was closed in 2011 and police investigations were halted in 2015 after senior staff including former NoW editor Andy Coulson were convicted.
But cases brought by others who claimed they had been targeted by NoW stablemate The Sun have been settled by News UK without admitting liability.
Hugh Grant was one of those who settled, after discovering that if he won but the court awarded damages that were even a penny less than News UK’s settlement offer, he would have to pay the legal costs of both sides which he claimed would amount to almost £10 million.
But more than 40 other people are currently suing News UK for hacking their phones or unlawfully obtaining their private information.
There is likely to be a trial next year, in which a key question may be why News UK deleted more than 30 million emails in 2010 and 2011, when it knew it faced a police investigation over phone hacking – nine million of which were “irretrievably lost”, according to court documents.
News UK insists it was clearing out old computer servers, but claimants say it was deleting evidence, and have accused the company of inventing a false “security threat” to provide another reason for the deletions.
And there is a suggestion that after emails belonging to chief executive Rebekah Brooks were leaked, the company deleted her emails to stop it happening again. The leaked emails were allegedly passed to a third party who met and discussed them with Mr Brown.
That is why this former prime minister may sue a newspaper firm over phone hacking. He has not previously taken action against News UK but has said he is now considering it.
He said it would be a very serious matter if a prime minister’s phone was hacked by this newspaper company.
This could create a problem for Rupert Murdoch’s firm because if necessary, Mr Brown could probably claim it was a national security issue and get public money to pay his costs – meaning News UK would not be able to out-price him as it did Mr Grant.
News UK has denied the allegations against it, pointing out that many of the deleted emails had been backed up, recovered, and handed to police, and claiming that threats to the security of Rebekah Brooks’s emails had been believed to be real.
Vox Political needs your help!
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2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical
3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/
Join the Vox Political Facebook page.
4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com
5) Join the uPopulus group at https://upopulus.com/groups/vox-political/
6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical
7) Feel free to comment!
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.
Cruel Britannia is available
in either print or eBook format here:
The Livingstone Presumption is available
in either print or eBook format here:
Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:
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