Met documents show Prescott may have been NOTW phone hack target
This must be another nail in the political coffin of Andy Coulson – from today’s Observer:
TweetJohn Prescott tonight demanded the Metropolitan police reopen its investigation into the News of the World phone-hacking scandal as the Observer revealed that Scotland Yard holds News International documents suggesting that he was a target when deputy prime minister.
Two invoices held by the Met mention Prescott by name. They appear to show that News International, owner of the NoW, paid Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator at the heart of the scandal, for his help on stories relating to the deputy PM. Lord Prescott spoke of his anger that the information, spelled out in a letter from the Yard’s legal services directorate, emerged only after he was given a series of personal reassurances by detectives at the highest level that there was “no evidence” his phone may have been hacked.
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5 Responses to “Met documents show Prescott may have been NOTW phone hack target”
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Burbler-in-chief
I’m not fan of the tabloids and their seedy reporting practices. But this story seems to be running on vapour in terms of actual evidence.
Two invoices paid to a PI at the time when Prescott’s affair with his secretary was being exposed is hardly evidence that his phone was “hacked”. He was cheating on his wife, with a public employee, at times in his office, during office hours (http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/Prescott-affair-39breached-Ministry-rules39.1534522.jp). So it’s not surprising PIs were engaged to assist. It is a big leap to suggest for sure that the PI employed definitely “hacked” his voice mails.
I’ll think there needs to be a little more substance before you can expect to see Coulson’s political coffin being nailed shut.
Thank you – I have modified the certainty of my post!
@Fullabeanz: Point taken, but didn’t Mulcaire more or less specialise in hacking in to people’s voicemails? If you find invoices from a rat-catcher in someone’s house it’s reasonable to assume that they’ve had a problem with rats.
Thanks Paul. I wasn’t expecting you to change the post, it’s just my opinion. But thanks for listening!
I’m still not convinced there is anything significant in terms of new evidence in the report. Now Mandelson is getting in on the act as well, I see. We’re going to get a lot of these “invoice” stories over the next few days/weeks I fear.
@Niklas: I’d say that he’s a private investigator and all papers use them to dig out details on people. The New York Times used one on their “exposé” of the NoTW “hacking” story, for example. I would think they all have experience of these techniques…
Having said that, from what I can make out, there really isn’t anything to specialise in (with these cases at least). Although words like “hacking” and “tapping” are being bandied about in the media and on Twitter, all the hard evidence I’ve seen only mentions unauthorised accessing of unprotected Voice Mail or Voice Mail with very weak PINs set (i.e. date of birth). Anyone can find out what the default PINs are for each mobile phone network (it’s usually something like 1234). If they then call another person’s mobile phone and they’ve not reset their PIN to something different then, hey presto, you have access to their VM.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not condoning such activity. Just pointing out that these activities are being somewhat exaggerated in order to increase the impact of the story. There has been talk of other “dark arts” being employed, but I’ve not seen any convincing evidence for it so far. I would be more concerned, for example, if phone tapping was being employed (i.e. listening to live conversations using covert monitoring techniques). As morally dubious (and, as far I can make out, illegal) as unauthorised accessing of another person’s unprotected VM is, there is a simple fix… set the bloody PIN… you’re a celeb for Christ’s sake!
Tapping on the other hand, or other true hacking techniques, work around normal security measures and are not so easily avoided. I would suggest any routine use of these, more nefarious, techniques is a more serious offence. And it is this scenario that is being painted with a pallet of evidence that doesn’t depict a convincing picture… to my eye at least!
If this kind of evidence came to light, then they’ve got my attention.
Thanks Fullabeanz. This win’s the accolade of Liberal Burblings “Comment of the week”