London, July 10: It was an innocuous injury to Prince William that exposed the underhand methods used by journalists of the 'News of the World' to uncover stories about celebrities by illicit means.
After an injury to his knee while playing football,
Prince William had sought medical assistance at the end of the
game in autumn 2005 but had discussed it only with his father,
Prince Charles and a secretary.
Therefore, suspicions were raised when the British
tabloid reported that the knee injury had led Prince William
to postpone a mountain rescue course.
The following week, the newspaper's Blackadder gossip
column claimed that Tom Bradby, ITV's political editor, had
lent the Prince a piece of video-editing equipment. When the
pair met, they began discussing the provenance of the item and
concluded that it - and the knee story - must have been gained
through phone-hacking.
When the newspaper's royal editor, Clive Goodman, was
arrested, police found he had the access code to the Prince
Charles mobile phone mailbox.
What the journalist had been doing, together with a
private investigator, Glenn "Trigger" Mulcaire, was getting
hold of mobile phone numbers then listening to their private
answer phone messages.
As a method of getting information for stories it was
quicker and simpler than wire-tapping and listening in to live
conversations. It was also illegal.
In January 2007, Goodman was sentenced to four months
in jail after admitting making 487 such calls over eight
months while Mulcaire, who was paid 104,988 pounds a year for
his services, received six months for hacking into 122
messages.
Mulcaire also admitted accessing voicemails of Ms Elle
Macpherson, the model; Max Clifford, the PR guru who had
fallen out with the News of the World; Sky Andrew, a leading
football agent; Simon Hughes, the Liberal Democrat MP and
Gordon Taylor the chairman of the Professional Footballers'
Association.
Now The Guardian newspaper alleged that Metropolitan
Police detectives found evidence that the tabloid and private
investigators had hacked into many more mobile phones.
It claimed that details of the other names would have
been disclosed in court when Taylor sued the newspaper, but
the evidence was kept out of the public eye after he was paid
more than 400,000 pounds in damages.
The Guardian alleged that one person whose messages
were hacked into during one month in 2006 was John Prescott,
the former deputy prime minister who was a prime tabloid
target after admitting to an affair with his diary secretary,
Ms Tracey Temple. Scotland Yard, however, denied this
yesterday.
Journalists who have worked at the News of the World
in the past claim the "dark arts" of investigations were
employed every day when it came to getting a story that would
beat its rivals and maintain its circulation of around 3
million - the highest of any Sunday newspaper.
Bureau Report
First Published: Friday, July 10, 2009, 23:48