News International wins court ruling on searches related to phone hacking
Lawyers acting for more than 170 phone-hacking victims, including Cherie Blair and Hugh Grant, were dealt a blow on Friday after losing a high courtHowever, the high court did order News International to hand over nine previously undisclosed emails between News International and the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, who is at the centre of the phone-hacking scandal.
The phone-hacking claimants were seeking further disclosure in relation to Mulcaire's activities before 2001 in an effort to establish whether voicemail interception had taken place earlier than admitted by News International during the course of the civil litigation proceedings.
They were also seeking access to 433 emails in a file on the computer in the room of a senior News International executive labelled "3 - Neville Thurlbeck.pst", along with other documentation submitted to the Metropolitan police and the Leveson inquiry. The .pst suffix would ordinarily refer to personal Microsoft Outlook email folders.
Mr Justice Vos said the decision not to allow more generic disclosure "does not come easily to me" in the light of previous evidence that News International, even during the course of litigation, had failed to disclose material it should have, and had also admitted to the destruction of emails.(1)
I don't personally agree with the decision. But ah well. I'm sure more will be found out even without full cooperation of News International.
Note:
(1) http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/oct/05/news-international-ruling-searches-phone-hacking
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