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Old 12-07-2011, 09:56 AM #5
Omah Omah is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Tralfamadore
Posts: 10,343
Omah Omah is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Tralfamadore
Posts: 10,343
Thumbs up Brown accuses News International of using criminals

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-14119225

Quote:
Former prime minister Gordon Brown has claimed News International used "known criminals" to gain access to personal information about people.

He accused the company of "working through links that they had to the criminal underworld" to get stories.

And he claimed the Sunday Times had used underhand methods to get access to personal details about him with the aim of bringing him down as chancellor.

News International said it would investigate Mr Brown's allegations.

The company, which is carrying out an internal investigation into allegations of wrongdoing at its newspapers, said it wanted to see all of the information.

It comes after a week of allegations about phone hacking at another News International title, the News of the World, which is accused of using a private investigator to listen to the mobile phone messages of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler.

The latest claims relate to personal details it is claimed were obtained for a front-page Sunday Times report that Mr Brown had bought a flat owned by Robert Maxwell at a "knock-down price".

Mr Brown told the BBC the story had been "completely wrong" but the company had been "trying to prove a point" and had aimed to bring him down as chancellor.

He alleged the newspaper had got access to his building society account and legal files: "I'm shocked, I'm genuinely shocked to find this happened because of the links with known criminals who were undertaking this activity, hired by investigators who were working with the Sunday Times."

"If I, with all the protection and all the defences and all the security that a chancellor of the exchequer or a prime minister has, is so vulnerable to unscrupulous tactics, unlawful tactics, to methods that have been used in the way that we've found - what about the ordinary citizen?

"What about the person - like the family of Milly Dowler - who were in the most desperate of circumstances, at the most difficult occasions in their lives - in huge grief ... and then they find that they are totally defenceless in this moment of greatest grief from people who are employing these ruthless tactics?"

The Guardian newspaper has reported that a conman working for the Sunday Times was used to get access to Mr Brown's files from his London lawyers - the conman was later jailed for fraud in relation to a different matter.
Good for Brown .....

(Accuses the people at the top, i.e. NI)
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