HACKING SCANDAL: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 Mr Brown.
Separately, Mr 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. Mr 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 Guardianhas found that:
* Scotland Yard has discovered references to Mr 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 Timeson six occasions posed as Mr 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.
Mr Brown joins a long list of Labour politicians who are known to have been targeted by private investigators working for News International, including former prime minister Tony Blair and his media adviser Alastair Campbell, 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 scale of the data assault on Mr Brown is unusual, with evidence of attempts to obtain his legal, financial, tax, medical and police records. 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 Mr 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.
Journalists who have worked at News International say they believe Mr 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 Timescontacted their Bradford call centre six times, posing as Mr Brown, and succeeded in extracting details from his account.
Confidential health records for Mr 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. Five years earlier, when their first child, Jennifer, was born on December 28th, 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 January 6th, 2002. – (Guardian service)