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February 8th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
By
Nick Mcdermott
Last updated at 12:06 AM on 8th February 2012
Apology: Times editor James Harding failed to disclose that a reporter had illegally hacked the emails of an anonymous police blogger
The editor of The Times has apologised personally to a High Court judge after he failed to disclose that a reporter had illegally hacked the emails of an anonymous police blogger who had served an injunction on the newspaper to keep his identity secret.
The Times, which was seeking in court to overturn the injunction and name the officer, had claimed reporter Patrick Foster discovered his identity through legitimate journalistic investigation.
In fact he had illegally hacked into the officer’s email, and the Leveson Inquiry was told that this was known at the time by the paper’s legal manager and at least one senior Times news executive, but concealed from the court and presiding judge Mr Justice Eady.
Times editor James Harding, recalled to the Leveson Inquiry yesterday, said he also become aware of Mr Foster’s actions in the days before Mr Justice Eady came to his decision in the case, but also failed to disclose it.
The judge overturned the injunction in June 2009 and, as a result, the paper was able to name serving Lancashire detective Richard Horton as the author of the NightJack blog.
Mr Harding said that if he had known earlier that Mr Foster had hacked Mr Horton’s email, he would have dropped the story.
He admitted his paper’s actions were ‘terrible’ and that he has since apologised to Mr Horton and the judge for the ‘sorely’ regretted intrusion.
He said ‘information had not been disclosed to the judge’ to which ‘I have to own my responsibility and my failure here. I can see now that we paid insufficient attention to this matter at the time’.
Unveiled: The award-winning NightJack blogger was exposed by The Times as Lancashire detective Richard Horton in 2009
Blogger: Richard Horton received an apology from the Times
At the time the newspaper fought the
injunction, Mr Foster’s line manager, the then home news editor Martin
Barrow, and the paper’s legal manager, Alastair Brett, knew he had been
involved in hacking, Mr Harding told the inquiry.
An
internal Times email disclosed to the inquiry suggested Mr Foster knew
that what he had done was dubious. He referred to it as ‘the dirty
deed’.
Mr Harding said he was unaware the legal challenge was even taking place and that he was only informed of the hacking later that same day when the case had been heard, but before a ruling had been delivered.
Asked why he had not raised the issue with the judge prior to his verdict, he said his focus was on other news stories and that he was not aware of ‘what the legal correspondence was’.
Robert Jay QC, counsel for the inquiry, said the judge was told the policeman’s identity had been uncovered through ‘a process of elimination and intelligent deduction’.
Mr Brett was said by Mr Harding to have responded to concerns the blogger’s email account may have been hacked by the Times reporter, by claiming it was a ‘baseless allegation’. He also failed to inform the paper’s barrister of the illegal email interceptions.
The inquiry heard that Mr Brett did not seek to tell the court of Mr Foster’s actions, as the reporter had spoken to him on a ‘confidential’ basis, and revealing the hacking could ‘incriminate’ him.
Mr Harding said Mr Foster was disciplined and later dismissed for an unrelated incident. The police are investigating The Times over the alleged hacking.
Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre is to be recalled to the Leveson Inquiry later this week to address questions raised on behalf of actor Hugh Grant.
We let down the victims in News Of The World scandal, says Scotland Yard
By REBECCA CAMBER
Former deputy PM John Prescott was one of the victims to bring judicial review proceedings to challenge the police for not alerting them that they had been targeted by the NotW
Scotland Yard admitted for the first time yesterday that officers had failed in their duty by not warning phone hacking victims their privacy may have been under threat.
The Metropolitan Police was forced to accept that it had ‘breached a legal obligation’ to do so as long ago as 2006.
The force reached a settlement at the High Court with a number of victims, including former deputy prime minister Lord Prescott, who brought judicial review proceedings to challenge the police for not alerting them that they had been targeted by the News of the World.
They also accused the force of failing to investigate the allegations properly.
Other claimants were Labour MP Chris Bryant, former Met deputy assistant commissioner Brian Paddick, Jude Law’s personal assistant Ben Jackson and an anonymous claimant.
The group claim, brought in 2010, was initially defended by police. But the force yesterday conceded that it had been wrong not to warn victims identified in the first inquiry into the scandal in 2006.
It came a day after the Leveson inquiry into Press standards heard that phone hacking at the News of the World claimed nearly 830 ‘likely victims’.
The Met admitted breaching its duties under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. However, no damages are to be paid to those affected.
Outside the High Court, Lord Prescott said: ‘I just wanted them to admit they weren’t doing their job properly.
‘In this country we expect police to get on with their job impartially, and they didn’t in this case. It’s taken me 19 months to finally get justice. Time and time again I was told by the Metropolitan Police that I had not been targeted by the News of the World. But I refused to accept this was the case.’
Mr Bryant said: ‘It is still a mystery to me why the police failed properly to investigate the News of the World in 2006.’
The Met admitted there were flaws in the handling of the original inquiry and said all the claimants were receiving personal apologies.
The number of officers working on investigations into phone hacking, computer hacking and blagging, and police corruption will soon rise to 171.
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