Gordon Brown makes prison grievance in opposition to Rupert Murdoch’s media empire

The former high minister Gordon Brown has made a brand new grievance to British police over allegations that Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper empire obstructed justice, after declaring he has spoken to officials concerned within the authentic phone-hacking inquiry.

Writing within the Guardian, Brown mentioned one of the most detectives had alleged they believed there used to be “significant evidence” that News Group Newspapers (NGN) deleted thousands and thousands of emails to pervert the process justice.

In the thing, Brown states that the previous officials advised him that if they’d been acutely aware of the background to the e-mail deletions, they’d have driven for additional motion.

Brown mentioned one former officer advised him: “If we had known this in 2011, we would have investigated fully and taken a different course of action including considering arrests.”

“Today I am making a criminal complaint to the Met (MPS) and CPS alleging that I am, along with many others, a victim of the obstruction of the course of justice by News Group,” he writes. “This is not an allegation made lightly. It is informed by recently available evidence, and by the statements of senior officers involved in the original investigations into unlawful news gathering, who have now stated to me that they were misled.”

NGN strenuously denies any allegations of proof destruction. It mentioned the Crown Prosecution Service concluded in 2015 that there used to be no proof that corporate e mail deletions had been performed to pervert the process justice.

In January, NGN apologised to Prince Harry for telephone hacking through newshounds at its Sunday tabloid, the News of the World, and the “serious intrusion by the Sun between 1996 and 2011 into his private life, including incidents of unlawful activities carried out by private investigators working for the Sun”.

The apology used to be a part of an out-of-court agreement to finish litigation introduced in opposition to NGN through the prince and Tom Watson, a former Labour deputy chief.

Brown mentioned the agreement had “not closed an era of investigation and litigation into media corruption. It has opened it up”.

Brown’s grievance to the Metropolitan police follows main points of claims made through former detectives contained in a record filed with the top court docket in London.

Their statements had been made in toughen of the long-running phone-hacking litigation pursued in opposition to NGN through Harry and Watson.

The skeleton criminal arguments of either side, reported through the Guardian, weren’t made public on the time and the claims have now not been examined at trial as a result of the agreement.

No admissions had been made in regards to the allegation of unlawful destruction of proof, which NGN strongly denies. The corporate mentioned it will have effectively fought the allegation if the case had long past to trial.

In his piece for the Guardian, Brown accuses Will Lewis, now leader govt of the Washington Post however then a senior NGN govt, of making an attempt to incriminate him and Watson.

He claims a false allegation in opposition to them used to be used to justify the deletion of emails to officials concerned with Operation Weeting, the Met investigation introduced in January 2011 to inspect phone-hacking allegations.

His accusation pertains to paperwork disclosed in top court docket civil movements remaining yr, which incorporated a minute taken through the Met police of a gathering detectives held with Lewis on 8 July 2011.

In the assembly, Lewis mentioned the corporate were advised of a plot involving Brown and Watson to procure the emails of Rebekah Brooks, the then leader govt of News International, thru a 3rd birthday party. Lewis used to be the corporate’s common supervisor on the time.

Brown states that one of the most investigating officials has now mentioned to him that NGN “falsely implicated Gordon Brown. If I had known this I would have made arrests for obstruction of justice.”

NGN apologised to Watson over the theory of a plot as a part of the agreement of his case, declaring the corporate now understood “this information was false”.

However, the corporate has mentioned they believed on the time that the risk used to be authentic and would have proved this at trial. NGN deliberate to quote a 2011 e mail from Brooks, now not up to now made public, expressing fear in regards to the interior safety of the corporate’s IT programs.

Lewis has up to now strongly denied wrongdoing. He didn’t remark when approached through the Guardian.

In its skeleton defence, NGN strenuously rejected allegations of a cover-up. A spokesperson mentioned that there used to be a loss of contemporaneous proof in toughen of the claimants’ case and that NGN had a powerful a lineup of witnesses who may ascertain its personal place. They mentioned the statements of 2 former officials with issues had been a “selective and partial consideration of the contemporaneous documents”.

NGN’s skeleton argument argued that the deletion of emails had “long been in the planning, for sound commercial, IT and practical reasons”, and that Harry and Watson’s claims on this space had drawn on “wholly unreasonable inferences from an incomplete account of the facts, many of which are taken entirely out of context”.

An NGN spokesperson mentioned that after Operation Weeting used to be initiated, the corporate passed incriminating subject material to police, whilst officials had been instantly made acutely aware of “the steps NGN had taken in relation to its historic email archive as well as the actions it had taken to preserve relevant evidence”.

They mentioned NGN labored along specialist IT law enforcement officials for months to reconstruct its digital archives.

“The allegations of email deletion had formed part of the prosecution case in the criminal trial in 2013/14,” they mentioned. “The investigation into News International concluded in 2015, almost 10 years ago, with a lengthy statement by the CPS deciding that no further action was to be taken in the light of there being no evidence to support an allegation of wrongdoing.”

Brown writes that the police must request a chain of court docket paperwork submitted right through years of litigation, together with from former NGN staff and ex-police officials.

He additionally requires prosecutors to step in – and for parliamentary committees to reopen their inquiries into the deletion of emails. He additionally asks the legal professional common, Richard Hermer, to intrude.

A spokesperson for NGN mentioned: “NGN once again strenuously denies that there was any plan to delete emails in order to conceal evidence from a police investigation.”

They mentioned Brown used to be an “unreliable complainant driven by vendetta and revenge for perceived wrongs by NGN”. They mentioned NGN figures operating with police on corporate emails “acted throughout with the utmost integrity and at all times followed the protocol agreed with the MPS in order to provide access to and restore data”.

“Mr Brown’s concerns again provide an inaccurate summary of allegations dealt with in the civil proceedings, which have already been extensively investigated and litigated,” an NGN spokesperson mentioned. “It is not uncommon for retired police officers to hold views about their failure to achieve a conviction or matters that have not gone their way in court … There are officers from the 2011 to 2015 investigations who, in possession of all the facts, would not agree.”

A Met spokesperson mentioned: “While we acknowledge that information emerging from civil proceedings is of interest to the public and the press who may be seeing it for the first time, in the vast majority of cases it is material that has already been considered as part of the numerous investigations and reviews that have previously been carried out.

“We are aware that parties in this recent case indicated an intention to pass material to us but we are yet to receive any such correspondence. In the event that we do, we will consider it carefully and proportionally, recognising the need to explore genuine lines of inquiry but acknowledging the significant resources already committed to past investigations.”