Officers from Scotland Yard’s 45-strong phone-hacking team have so far contacted 638 suspected victims of mobile phone voicemail interception by the News of the World.
The news comes after the Met last week announced that the number of potential targets had risen from 3,870 in July to almost 5,800, a figure based on the list of first and second names recovered in material from private investigator Glenn Mulcaire.
Scotland Yard said the figure was ‘very likely to be revised in the future as a result of further analysis”.
Today a spokesperson for the Met said: “To date officers from Operation Weeting have contacted or been contacted by 1,833 people. It has been established that the names of 638 of these 1,833 people have appeared in material being analysed by police and may therefore have been victims of phone hacking.”
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In July, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers told the Home Affairs Select Committee that only 170 suspected victims had been contacted.
Operation Weeting is trawling through 11,000 pages of evidence obtained from former News of the World investigator Glenn Mulcaire.
Yesterday it was announced Mulcaire’s notes will be made public for the first time as part of the Leveson Inquiry into press standards.
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Inquiry chairman Lord Justice Leveson said personal details would not be included unless victims who were in the public domain gave their consent
The names of journalists linked to entries in Mulcaire’s notebook will be anonymised, but will be placed into bands indicating their seniority at NoW.
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