High Court Hears Claims Against News Group Newspapers Over Email Deletion

In a significant legal development, the High Court has allowed the search of documents linked to a former News International executive amid allegations that Rupert Murdoch’s media company falsely implicated former Prime Minister Gordon Brown and MP Tom Watson in a fabricated security threat. This purportedly served to justify the deletion of millions of emails, as claimed by Watson and former Liberal Democrat business secretary Sir Vince Cable during a preliminary hearing. The court was informed that News Group Newspapers (NGN), which publishes the Sun and the now-defunct News of the World, allegedly constructed a "false narrative" suggesting that Lord Watson conspired with Brown to obtain stolen data. This narrative was reportedly aimed at concealing wrongdoing and obstructing police investigations into the phone-hacking scandal. Evidence presented included minutes from a 2011 meeting where it was claimed that a source warned of a security breach involving Rebekah Brooks’s emails. Anthony Hudson KC, representing NGN, argued that the threat to Brooks's data was considered genuine. Initially resistant to searches for relevant materials linked to former executives, NGN has since agreed to cooperate. Watson's legal representative, David Sherborne, emphasized that the allegations of a "fake security threat" were particularly egregious, as they were used to justify the destruction of crucial evidence related to NGN's alleged illegal activities. Additionally, Cable's claims include accusations that NGN unlawfully obtained covert recordings of his constituency surgery, which he had described as a declaration of war against Murdoch. These recordings were reportedly leaked to the BBC, further complicating the legal landscape for the media company.