Huge numbers of emails related to allegations of phone hacking missing – court hears
By Byline Media: Lawyers for alleged phone hacking victims have asked Britain’s biggest publisher why so few emails have been handed over in legal proceedings. When asked to state how many emails of Group Legal Director Marcus Partington existed on a search database, Mirror Group Newspapers said there were only ‘two or three’ – from a four year period.
The search period was between 2000 and 2004, when phone hacking was rife across the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and The People.
There are “enormous gaps,” in information released by Mirror Group Newspapers to phone-hacking claimants, barrister David Sherborne told the High Court. At a case management hearing in London, Mr. Sherborne claimed that a lack of email and other evidence, given to the alleged victims legal team, was “deeply unsatisfactory.”
The court, which sat on Thursday June 20th and the following day, heard about the case of former television presenter John Leslie.
The court was shown a spreadsheet which showed, the barrister said, an absence of email evidence relating to articles Mr Leslie was suing over.
He said that Mr Peter Willis, a former TV Editor and “very senior figure in the newspaper,” had been calling a confidential telephone number shared by Mr Leslie and his agent, adding, “there is no good reason for this.”
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