HOT NEWS: Horror as Queen Elizabeth II’s medical records ‘targeted by private investigator’
HOT NEWS: Horror as Queen Elizabeth II’s medical records ‘targeted by private investigator’
The High Court was told that a private investigator, Jonathan Rees, accused of harvesting confidential information for the publisher of the Daily Mail, boasted of being able to access the late Queen Elizabeth II’s medical records.
Prince Harry and several other prominent figures are bringing legal action against Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL, publishers of the Daily Mail) over claims of unlawful information gathering.
Harry’s barrister David Sherborne presented evidence on January 19 of private investigator Jonathan Rees, who ran Southern Investigations, allegedly bragging about how he could access personal data.
Mr Sherborne told the court: “Rees liked to boast about the information he could get. ‘We can get the Queen’s medical records’, he once said.”
On January 19, the court heard allegations the private investigator engaged in phone tapping, computer hacking, and bribing police officers as part of what was described as a “whole range of other unlawful activities”.
Evidence came from Derek Haslam, a former Metropolitan Police officer who worked undercover to infiltrate Southern Investigations.
Mr Rees allegedly held meetings in a pub with police officers seeking additional income by selling information. Mr Sherborne alleged that the private investigator approached contacts within the Metropolitan Police seeking “filth” on Stephen Lawrence’s mother, Baroness Doreen Lawrence.
The barrister told the court that Mr Rees intended to use any damaging information to blackmail the campaigner.
Baroness Lawrence, who has spent decades fighting for justice following her son’s racist murder in 1993, is among the claimants bringing the case against the Mail’s publisher.
The allegations form part of the wider claims that ANL employed unlawful methods to gather private information about high-profile individuals.
The publisher conducted searches but discovered no payment records to Mr Rees, Southern Investigations “or any of their entities”, the court heard.
Journalist Stephen Wright, whose byline appeared on each story about Lady Lawrence referenced in the claim, “categorically denies ever having met or spoken to Mr Rees, nor has he ever commissioned Mr Rees or his company to carry out any investigations or other acts, legal or illegal.
