MP seeks firmer action over email hacking

The Met Police is coming under pressure to commit more resources to investigating email hacking by national newspapers, following claims that Gordon Brown’s emails were hacked while he was Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Emails between Brown and advisers could have been hacked by investigators working for Fleet Street titles, including damaging revelations about Brown’s relationship with then Prime Minister Tony Blair, according to reports in The Independent.

Amid claims that email hacking could be more widespread than the phone hacking that sparked the scandal which closed down the News of the World, MP Tom Watson has questioned the Met’s resource allocation to email activity.

Although Operation Weeting, which is investigating phone hacking, has a team of 120 officers, it is understood that Operation Tuleta, which is probing email hacking, has only eight staff.

These new revelations could be more damaging to our democracy than the phone-hacking scandal

The team is currently working through some 750,000 emails on around 20 computers, the paper reported, alleging that hundreds of targets may have been hacked.

“These new revelations could be more damaging to our democracy than the phone-hacking scandal,” Watson said.

“It seems bizarre that the new Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Bernard Hogan-Howe, would only have such a small team investigating such serious allegations that go to the heart of the political system.”