Shadow foreign minister Chris Bryant has officially issued judicial review proceedings over the newspaper phone-hacking row.
Lawyers representing the Labour MP, former Scotland Yard deputy assistant commissioner Brian Paddick and journalist Brendan Montague have asked the courts to decide whether police handled the case properly.
Last week Bryant told the House of Commons he was one of the MPs who contacted the Metropolitan Police and was told that he was on a list of those allegedly targeted but that the police had done “absolutely nothing” about it.
Instigation of judicial review proceedings come as it emerges that further public figures are pursuing legal action over alleged phone-hacking.
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Solicitors acting for comedian Steve Coogan and Who Wants to Be A Millionaire Host Chris Tarrant have initiated claims on their behalf, the Guardian reported this morning.
Last month Press Gazette revealed that former MP George Galloway had also issued proceedings over alleged phone-hacking.
The News of the World‘s ex-royal editor Clive Goodman and private investigator Glen Mulcaire were jailed in 2007 after accessing the voicemails of public figures.
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Downing Street communications chief Andy Coulson – the paper’s editor at the time – has found himself at the centre of fresh controversy recently amid claims he was aware that such practices were widespread among his reporters.
Coulson has repeatedly denied any knowledge of such activities, and the Metropolitan Police has insisted it carried out a thorough probe.
Confirming the widely expected judicial review move, Tamsin Allen, a partner at law firm Bindmans LLP, said: “Our clients have still not been told the whole story about how their names came to be in the papers seized during the phone hacking investigation in 2006 and why they were not warned that their privacy might have been compromised.
“The court will now determine whether or not the Metropolitan Police breached its public law and human rights obligations in the way it handled this investigation and its aftermath.
“We expect being in a position shortly to announce the names of at least two others in a similar position who will join these proceedings in due course.”
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