Tag Archives: Private Investigator

Kelvin MacKenzie: I Was Hacked.

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Kelvin MacKenzie has described how he felt after learning his phone was hacked by the News of the World. MacKenzie was writing in this week’s edition of The Spectator (out tomorrow)

MacKenzie, who is the former editor of The Sun, insisted he will not sue his former employer.

MacKenzie says he was invited to meet officers from the Met’s phone-hacking inquiry Operation Weeting because his name and private details were found in notebooks belonging to private investigator Glenn Mulcaire.

He said:

We went into a large empty room where the sergeant produced a tatty binder with my name down the side. By this time I was beginning to sweat. At that moment I would have even coughed to voting for Blair in 1997.

There was a dramatic pause as the sergeant opened up the binder. Sheet one had my name on it with a number by the side. Was it mine? Yes it was. The next page was more interesting. It had the pin code used to access my phone’s voice mails.

Up to this moment I had always believed that the pin codes of mobiles were 0000 or 1111 and that’s why it was so easy to crack. But no. In my case it was something like 367549V27418. That surely must kill the idea that the hackers guessed or blagged the number — they must have had inside help from the phone networks.

MacKenzie was going though a divorce and admitted that the experience made him feel ‘queasy’

He elaborated:

In any event, I won’t be taking News International’s money. That would be a betrayal of the many happy years I spent there, plus I have a sense that to pocket the cash — and one lawyer was anxious for me to know that it would be tax free, always attractive — would be to indicate I thought Rupert Murdoch would ever have turned a blind eye to the hackings.

I have an advantage over you. I know Rupert Murdoch and I know he would have gone ballistic at the very thought of such actions. At 81 he may be old but he’s not daft. I should be so daft.
Still, I do reflect that in those 60 minutes I spent with the two police officers by Putney Bridge that my previous hostile attitude to the hacked stars had changed forever. As has my pin number.

Kate Middleton Hacked

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The Duchess of Cambridge has been named as one of the celebrities who have had their bank account and phone hacked by a tabloid.

Kate Middleton’s phone and bank account was hacked in 2005 by a private detective, Jonathan Rees. Rees was hired by the Mirror Group and the New of the World.

According to the Telegraph, the Duchess of Cambridge’s phone was tapped between 2005 and 2006 when she was Prince William’s girlfriend. Police sources told the Daily Mail “Kate Middleton appears to have been in a league of her own in terms of the amount of hacking attempts made on her mobile phone. She was routinely targeted dozens of times a day and on some occasions this figure would reach three figures.”

Tom Watson MP named Mr Rees’ yesterday in the House Of Commons and called for the Metropolitan police to delve deeper with their investigation into Mr Rees’ work as a private investigator.