‘News International blackmailed UK MPs’

In 2007 when the phone hacking was first uncovered, the company claimed in its Sunday tabloid News of the World that the practice was the work of a single “rogue reporter” and defended that position well until the issue blew into a full-scale scandal last year.

However, it has now appeared that News International has bullied MPs on a parliamentary committee who were trying to prove the illegal news gathering practice was an organized scheme in the company to keep the scandal from becoming public.

The Metropolitan police have begun investigations into the matter on the advice of parliamentary authorities especially the Labour MP Tom Watson.

The probe follows revelations by the former senior News of the World journalist Neville Thurlbeck who said News International ordered the tabloid’s reporters to delve into the private lives of MPs on the Commons Culture, Media and Sports Committee in 2009 to find evidence of affairs or gay relationships.

“At the height of the hacking scandal, News of the World reporters were dispatched round the clock,” Thurlbeck said.

“The objective was to find as much embarrassing sleaze on as many members as possible in order to blackmail them into backing off from its highly forensic inquiry into phone hacking,” he added.

Watson, who was on the targeted committee at the time, said he has “evidence” that he was “put under covert surveillance in September 2009.”

The new revelation comes as News of the World reporters had in the past talked of using “leverage” to ensure certain people with embarrassing records would cooperate with the paper.

AMR/MA/HE

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