Phone hacking scandal deepens

[Peter Lemkin]

Princess Diana 'supplied News of the World with royal phone directory'

Paper's royal editor Clive Goodman says Prince of Wales's valet gave him two more books, Old Bailey told

• Lisa O'Carroll
  
• theguardian.com, Thursday 13 March 2014 17.09 GMT
  

Princess Diana supplied the News of the World with an internal royal phone directory, Clive Goodman told the Old Bailey. Photograph: Oli Scarff/Getty

Princess Diana supplied the News of the World with an internal royal phone directory, it has been claimed at the Old Bailey.
A former senior valet to the Prince of Wales supplied two other books to the paper's royal editor Clive Goodman, the phone hacking trial jury heard on Thursday.
Goodman told the court that the Princess of Wales posted him one of the directories that were found in his house when it was searched by police following allegations of phone hacking in August 2006.
"It arrived in an envelope with my name on it," Goodman said, adding that it found its way to his desk at the News of the World.
Goodman, who has been charged with conspiring to cause misconduct in public office by paying a public official for the directories, said he had no warning that the directory was in the post. He has denied the charge.
"I received a call from the Princess of Wales later on that day asking me had I received it," he said of the book, which contained royal household numbers in 1992.
Goodman said she had sent him the directory because she wanted him to see the "scale of her husband's staff at his household" and the "scale of the forces ranged against her".
He added that "she felt she was in a very bitter situation at the time", as her marriage to Prince Charles had broken down.
Goodman said he got two further books from Kenneth Stronach, a former senior valet to Prince Charles, shortly before he left his private personal staff in 1995.
These books were dated 1988 and 1993 and among 15 books police found in Goodman's home in 2006.
Goodman told jurors that he had never paid a police officer, or royal protection officer for a story. He also told the court that he had never had a story from a police officer.
He also denied using the books to obtain mobile phone numbers for hacking, or for "blagging" obtaining personal information without an individual's permission and denied ever giving any information contained in the books for that purpose to anyone else.
The trial continues.