Former BBC Crimewatch presenter Jacqui Hames suggested today the News of the World placed her under surveillance because of the paper's links to suspects in a notorious murder case.
She rejected as "absolutely pathetic" ex-News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks's claim that the paper was investigating whether she was having an affair with detective chief superintendent Dave Cook, who was actually her husband.
Ms Hames, herself a former Scotland Yard detective, fought back tears as she told the Leveson Inquiry in London of the damaging effect that being followed by private investigators had on her and her marriage.
The News of the World placed the couple under surveillance after Mr Cook made an appeal on Crimewatch in June 2002 for information about the 1987 murder of private investigator Daniel Morgan, the inquiry into press standards heard.
Ms Hames alleged that Mr Morgan's firm Southern Investigations, whose members included suspects in the killing, had "close links" to senior News of the World news editor Alex Marunchak.
She said in a statement to the inquiry: "I believe that the real reason for the News of the World placing us under surveillance was that suspects in the Daniel Morgan murder inquiry were using their association with a powerful and well-resourced newspaper to try to intimidate us and so attempt to subvert the investigation.
“These events left me distressed, anxious and needing counselling, and contributed to the breakdown of my marriage to David in 2010," she said. “Given the impact of these events, I would like to know why the police did not investigate why we came to be placed under surveillance by a newspaper like this.”
In May 2011 Scotland Yard officers informed Ms Hames that her details had been found in the notebooks of Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator working for the News of the World who was jailed for phone hacking in 2007. The information included her payroll and police warrant numbers, her home address and mobile phone number, and notes about Mr Cook.
Ms Hames said Mulcaire's notes were dated July 3rd, 2002, about a week before the News of the World placed her and her husband under surveillance.
"This demonstrates to me that the News of the World knew full well that I was married to David at the time of the surveillance and thus gives the lie to their explanation for it," she said in her statement.
"This information could only have come from one place: my MPS (Metropolitan Police Service) file. I was horrified by the realisation that someone within the MPS had supplied information from my personnel file to Mr Mulcaire, and probably for money.
"Similarly distressing was the realisation that the MPS had known about these entries in Mr Mulcaire's notebooks since 2006 but had chosen neither to inform me nor to investigate it adequately."
PA