Scotland Yard has launched a probe into Britain’s Sunday Mirror newspaper over allegations that its former employees indulged in phone hacking, accessing voicemail messages of celebrities.
The investigation is focused on the Trinity Mirror Group subsidiary, Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) Ltd, publisher of the group’s five national newspapers.
The celebrity-heavy
A spokesperson confirmed that MGN “has been notified by the Metropolitan Police that they are at a very early stage in investigating whether MGN is criminally liable for alleged unlawful conduct by previous employees in relation to phone hacking on the
The development is the first formal confirmation that a newspaper group is being investigated as a corporate suspect for alleged phone hacking by its former journalists.
It was reported last month that Rupert Murdoch’s News International, a rival of the Sunday Mirror , was placed under investigation, but the Met Police is yet to officially confirm that claim.
“The group does not accept wrong-doing within its business and takes these allegations seriously. It is too soon to know how these matters will progress and further updates will be made if there are any significant developments,” the Trinity Group said in a statement here today.
The company said it did not accept liability.
The announcement comes after former Sunday Mirror and News Of The World journalist Dan Evans was charged last week with phone hacking offences.
One of the Sunday Mirror journalists arrested was former editor Tina Weaver, who worked at the paper between 2001 and 2012, and was detained in a dawn raid in March as part of the Met police’s Operation Weeting inquiry into phone hacking.
Several former Trinity Mirror employees have been arrested since the scandal began two years ago.
“As with any investigation we carry out, we do not identify suspects or anybody arrested or anybody we may we wish to speak to. That goes for corporations the same as it does for individuals,” a Met police spokesperson said.
Trinity Mirror publishes numerous regional titles in Britain and two Scottish newspapers as well as the Daily Mirror and Sunday People.
Over a hundred people have been arrested under three police probes launched in the wake of the now defunct News of the World ’ phone hacking scandal, which also sparked a judicial inquiry into the ethics of British press.