Gordon Brown asks Met to launch fresh probe into phone hacking amid 'cover up' allegations
Gordon Brown tells ITV News Political Editor Robert Peston why he's called for a fresh probe over phone hacking by Rupert Murdoch's News International
Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown has written to the head of the Met Police to call for a new criminal investigation into News International over phone hacking.
A decade ago the police conducted an investigation into hacking. Its boss Rebekah Brooks was prosecuted and cleared.
But today Brown is calling for a new police probe after new information in court documents allege a massive cover-up by News International, which reveal that he was accused of being in a conspiracy to obtain internal emails.
This supposed security threat to the owner of the News of the World and The Sun was allegedly used to explain to police why millions of emails - that may have been key evidence - were destroyed.
News Group Newspapers said Brown's allegations are "unfounded and wrong", that they relate to events that are a decade old but are the subject of current proceedings in civil courts.
Brown told ITV News Political Editor Robert Peston it was "astonishing" to discover the allegations against him.
"We've known for some time that the news group destroyed about 30 million emails," he says. "But what we didn't know was the explanation that they were giving to the police for why they'd done this.
"And it is totally shocking to think that what they should do is allege that I and Tom Watson should have been bribing one of their employees... to try to get hold of their emails.
"And their pretext for destruction was that I was engaged in trying to get this information... and of course, it's not true."
Brown has today written to the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Mark Rowley, saying the theft and bribery accusations are "completely untrue" and requesting a meeting as a precursor to a new "criminal investigation".
What has incensed Brown is statements in recent court documents that on January 22 2011, News International IT Executive Paul Cheesbrough emailed Brooks and the general manager, Will Lewis, saying Brown had a sympathiser inside News International who was stealing Brooks's emails.
On February 11, Cheesbrough asked for an investigation of the potential theft of data that was allegedly being passed to Labour MP, Tom Watson, who was close to Brown.
And then on July 8, months after the Met Police had been investigating phone hacking, Cheesebrough and Lewis told the police there had been a suspected theft of Brooks's emails, that Watson had been handling this stolen data, and that he was working in a conspiracy with Brown.
This, they told the police, was why millions of emails had been deleted, according to minutes of that meeting referenced in publicly available case documents.
Peston asked the former prime minister if he would be happy to swear on oath that the allegations against him were untrue. "Absolutely," he said without hesitation.
Brown has been concerned for some time that not only his privacy, but also that of his family, was invaded by these newspapers. So, why hasn't he ever taken action?
"That's a matter that I continue to consider," Brown says. "But the important thing for me is not what happened to me. Now, the important thing for me is that people have got a right to privacy."
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Peston asked him about what really sparked national outrage about the hacking scandal - the targeting of the phone of missing school girl, Milly Dowler.
"I'd like to see an investigation into a number of cases that happened subsequently," says Brown. "You've got to look at not just the Millie Dowler tragedy. You've got to look at the Soham murders.
"You've got to look at what happened in 2005 as a result of the bombings in London - the terrorist incident - and what happened to members of these families. You've also got to look at the Madeleine McCann case.
"Was News International and were the journalists and were the private investigators involved in invading the privacy of people at the moment of their greatest grief, at the moment when they were most vulnerable?"
And there is evidence Brown's phone was hacked. Part of this organisation, The Sun newspaper, turned against the then-prime minister prior to the 2010 general election. Peston asked if this was a case of revenge served cold for Brown.
"No, because I haven't taken any action since then other than speak to the Leveson inquiry," he says. "And it's only because I've now become aware of all the evidence, which is accumulating over these last few months, that I think something has got to be done."
A spokesperson for News Group Newspapers [NGN], Rebekah Brooks and Paul Cheesbrough said: "Mr Brown's allegations are unfounded and wrong.
"They relate to events from over a decade ago which are the subject of current legal proceedings in the civil courts.
"This is a highly complex and heavily contested area of the litigation.
"They are denied by NGN in a detailed defence for the court.
"There is absolutely no evidence to support the assertion that Mr Brown's voicemails were intercepted and this is denied."
Will Lewis was contacted for a response but declined to comment.
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