THE SCANDAL surrounding Rupert Murdoch’s News International group of newspapers in Britain escalated last night following allegations that its journalists illegally secured medical and banking records relating to former British prime minister Gordon Brown.
The Guardianreported that Mr Brown was targeted during a period of more than 10 years, both as chancellor of the exchequer and as prime minister.
Mr Brown was targeted by the Sunand the Sunday Times, which accessed details from his legal file, his Abbey National bank account and his baby son's medical records, the Guardianand the BBC said.
Mr Brown’s spokeswoman said last night: “Gordon Brown has now been informed of the scale of intrusion into his family’s life. The family has been shocked by the level of criminality and the unethical means by which personal details have been obtained. The matter is in police hands.”
News International sources last evening told Sky News that it was “comfortable” that all of the information that its newspapers had printed about the Browns’ children had been obtained within the law.
The repercussions of the scandal for News Corp, the parent group of News International, became evident yesterday when the British government referred News Corp’s bid to take over satellite broadcaster BSkyB to the UK competition commission. This came after News Corp withdrew previous assurances to guarantee Sky News’s editorial independence.
However, it is clear that British prime minister David Cameron, increasingly under fire over his relationship with News International and his decision to hire former News of the Worldeditor Andy Coulson, wants News Corp to abandon the takeover bid entirely. "All I would say is this: if I was running that company right now with all the problems and the difficulties and the mess, frankly, that there is, I think they should be focused on clearing those up rather than on the next corporate move," Mr Cameron said.
E-mails unearthed within the Metropolitan Police allegedly reveal that News of the Worldexecutives, including Mr Coulson, considered paying a royal police protection officer £1,000 for telephone numbers of senior members of the royal family, including Queen Elizabeth.
Journalists from its sister paper, the Sun, are alleged to have illegally obtained the medical records of Mr Brown's son, Fraser, showing that he had cystic fibrosis, while other newspapers secured details about Mr Brown's one-week-old daughter, Jennifer, days before she died in 2002.
Last night, Mr Brown’s wife, Sarah, said she was “so sad” to learn about the breaches of her family’s privacy: “It is very personal and really hurtful if all true.” Later, she said that she was “thinking of other families affected who did not ask to be in public eye”.
It is alleged that the Sunday Times, hired a private investigator to gain illegal access on six occasions to details of Mr Brown's bank account by posing as Mr Brown.
Mr Brown was warned about the illegal checks on his account in 2003, though it appears that a prosecution against a private detective for data protection breaches against a large number of people did not go ahead because the judge baulked at the cost of the trial.
Meanwhile, US investors who are already suing News Corp in the United States about its takeover of a company belonging to Mr Murdoch’s daughter have expanded their action to claim damages for its failure to deal properly with the phone-hacking scandal in Britain.
A bank and a number of pension funds are seeking damages before a Delaware court, claiming that News Corp’s board had failed to exercise proper oversight and to take action to deal with the telephone hacking allegations since they emerged.
It was mooted in some quarters that Mr Murdoch might be prepared to sell News International entirely in a bid to protect the rest of his empire.
Veteran Channel 4 newsanchor Jon Snow wrote in his blog on the scandal yesterday that "this does indeed represent Britain's Watergate moment".
