Times of London Sued in Hacking Scandal

[alp227]

Source: NY Times

As Britain’s hacking scandal shows little sign of easing, a high-profile London lawyer who has been closely involved in pursuing cases involving Rupert Murdoch’s British tabloids said on Friday that his firm was suing the upmarket Times of London over e-mail hacking for which the newspaper has apologized.

The lawyer, Mark Lewis, said in an interview Friday that the “claim has been issued,” and that he would soon be filing a comprehensive statement of case against the London newspaper, also part of Mr. Murdoch’s British newspaper group, News International. The suit, filed Tuesday, concerns a case in which a reporter who is no longer with the newspaper hacked into the e-mail account of Richard Horton, a police detective who ran an award-winning blog under the pseudonym NightJack. The claim, Mr. Lewis said, “is not just on misuse of information or privacy grounds, but also a claim for what lawyers would call deceit,” based on denials the newspaper made. A spokeswoman for News International confirmed the suit had been filed, but declined to comment further.

The blogger’s true identity was not publicly known until an article in The Times of London in 2009 identified him as Mr. Horton.

At a hearing in February of the so-called Leveson inquiry into press ethics and practices, James Harding, the editor of The Times of London, apologized on behalf of the newspaper, saying “I sorely regret the intrusion” into the e-mail account.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/14/world/europe/times-of-london-sued-in-hacking-scandal.html

[truebrit71]

1. Excellent news!!

I love it...each day, a part of that vicious bastards empire comes under attack...

[Kazzzzon]

2. +

Good riddance.

[intaglio]

3. Good, about time

Though Times employees should have been charged with perjury by the High Court for being less than truthful about the way in which the name was obtained.

Being a UK citizen I have to be careful and not use the term liar even though common usage it might see it as the more appropriate word. No person is a liar though they can issue lies ...

[dipsydoodle]

4. The person concerned now writes for the Guardian

as does Lewis which may possibly explain why the person hasn't been drawn into this. The Guardian would've headlined this but on this occasion its almost buried there. I would doubt that this one will be settled out of court.

[JDPriestly]

5. I wonder what the status is of some of our overly zealous enquiring news reporters in the US.

I can think of a couple of grocery store check-out counter rags that seem to know (or at least claim they know) a lot of very intimate details about the personal lives of celebrities -- including what numbers they call on their cell phones, etc.