Prescott fights on over hacking

Lord Prescott has been refused permission to mount a legal challenge over the handling of the phone-hacking case
12 April 2012

Lord Prescott is to battle on after a judge refused him permission to mount a High Court challenge over the Metropolitan Police's handling of the News of the World phone-hacking case.

Mr Justice Mitting ruled the legal challenge "unarguable" after considering the issues in private.

The judge rejected applications to seek judicial review by the former deputy prime minister and three other applicants.

Labour MP Chris Bryant, former Scotland Yard deputy assistant commissioner Brian Paddick and journalist Brendan Montague also claim there were human rights breaches in the police handling of their cases.

The bid by all four to seek judicial review is now expected to come before a judge in open court.

Tamsin Allen, head of media and information law at Bindmans LLP, said: "This is not the final decision. We think the judge, who considered the case on the papers in private, is plainly wrong and the application for permission will be renewed at an open court hearing."

The legal challenge was triggered by a Metropolitan Police refusal to provide the four with all the information relevant to them which was found during a search of the office of jailed private investigator Glenn Mulcaire.

Lord Prescott wants the courts to declare that the Met violated his rights under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights by failing to inform him that his details had been obtained by hacking, and failing to respond to direct requests for information contained in documents held by the police.

He says: "These documents had been in the Metropolitan Police's possession since their investigation in 2005/2006 but I was never notified of them or that I was a person of interest to Mulcaire. I only discovered I might have been after the Guardian published its original investigation on July 8 2009."

He also wants a declaration that there was a further human rights violation because the police failed to carry out an effective investigation into the unlawful phone-hacking activities of Mulcaire and others, including former News of the World royal editor Clive Goodman, who was jailed after pleading guilty to intercepting phone messages.

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