Media deception: UK hacking scandal widens

LONDON:

Britain’s former prime minister Gordon Brown had his phone hacked and bank account breached by The Sunday Times, another British newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, reports said on Monday.

In a story taking new twists and turns by the hour and involving all levels of the establishment, former prime minister Gordon Brown was preparing to say he had been heavily targeted by the The Sunday Times and The Sun, both Murdoch papers, reports said.

The royal family were also allegedly targeted, with police protection officers receiving payments for royal phone numbers from the News of World tabloid, which Murdoch shut down at the weekend in a bid to limit the scandal.

The BBC and The Guardian newspaper later reported that The Sunday Times had targeted Brown when he was finance minister, obtaining private medical, financial and property details.

The BBC said someone acting for The Sunday Times posed as Brown and obtained details of his account at the Abbey National Bank in January 2000, in relation to a story about a flat he had bought from late media mogul Robert Maxwell.

It cited letters written by the bank to the editor of The Sunday Times voicing suspicions that “someone from The Sunday Times or acting on its behalf has masqueraded as Brown for the purpose of obtaining information from Abbey National by deception.”

The Guardian reported that The Sun — News of the World’s daily sister paper — obtained details from his infant son’s medical records about a serious illness.



Published in The Express Tribune, July 12^th, 2011.