Phone hacking scandal deepens

[Jan Klimkowski]

More Murdoch mafioso shenanigans.

Leverage.

Blackmail.

Intimidation.

Private investigators posed as journalists for NoW, says lawyer

Charlotte Harris, acting for phone hacking victims, says investigators compiled 'vast' dossier on her private life

Josh Halliday

guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 13 March 2012 17.00 GMT


Harris told MPs the dossier contained pictures of her home and information about her 'private life, political affiliations, career aspirations.'

Charlotte Harris, the lawyer acting for several phone-hacking victims, fears that private investigators posed as journalists to solicit information about her for the News of the World.

Speaking after giving evidence to a select committee of MPs on Tuesday, Harris said she was "disconcerted" to find details of telephone conversations she had with people identifying themselives as journalists in a secret dossier compiled by private investigators allegedly on behalf of the now-defunct News of the World.

"I suspect that private investigators posed as journalists as part of this surveillance and what I said over the phone to them ended up in the report that I find disconcerting," Harris told the Guardian.

The solicitor earlier told the Commons home affairs committee that private investigators had compiled a "vast" dossier of "gossip" about her private life in 2010, when she acted on behalf of several alleged victims of phone hacking by the News of the World. Harris told MPs that News Corporation's management and standards committee (MSC) had passed some details about her surveillance to Scotland Yard.

Harris, a partner at solicitors firm Mishcon de Reya, told MPs on Tuesday she was targeted because she had "stumbled across a ream of activity that News International didn't want to come out". She added: "The police showed me the file and it was vast. I say it was vast it was vast compared to evidence I've seen on other people.

"It was clear [that] basically the idea of the report was to find out private information about the main lawyers who were involved in the phone-hacking litigation, private information between them ... it looked a bit like a gossip draft."

She told MPs the dossier contained pictures of her home and information about her "private life, political affiliations, career aspirations, how well people got on".

Tom Crone, the former head of legal for the Sun and News of the World, told the Leveson inquiry in December that he agreed the newsdesk of the now-closed Sunday tabloid should "have a look" at Harris and Mark Lewis, another lawyer for alleged phone-hacking victims, in early 2010.

However, he told the inquiry he believed that Derek Webb, the private investigator who put the pair under surveillance, was a freelance journalist and not a private investigator.