Mirror Group CEO Sly Bailey has gone into full Rebekah Brooks mode, issuing threats to the Culture Media and Sport Select Committee, telling them to stop questioning her papers and their tactics. Sky’s Mark Kleinman makes the very good point that just like Brooks, Bailey has issued a denial before instigating any investigation. Given her papers beat all of the competition in the number of blagging cases discovered by the Information Commissioner, Guido would recommend she gets onto this forthwith.
If Sly is going to continue to deny Trinity Mirror didn’t illegally hack voicemails and blag phones, perhaps she would like to explain how they got this Pulitzer worthy Sunday Mirror story:*
Football In Crisis: Rio phone sensation: WHY TEXT HIS DOC?
by JAMES SAVILLE Oct 19, 2003
THE mystery over the Rio Ferdinand missed drugs test takes a dramatic new twist today as we reveal that the first contact he made after leaving the ground was a text message to a private doctor. The Man Utd footballer sent the message within minutes of leaving the club’s training ground and just an hour after being ordered to attend the random check. The Sunday Mirror can reveal that the 24-year-old had his mobile phone on at all times – contrary to reports that his phone was still off after finishing training. And although a desperate phone call and a series of text messages had been left on his phone by club doctor Mike Stone, it took Ferdinand nearly half an hour to call back.
How did the Sunday Mirror know about Rio’s text messages? That his phone was switched on at all times? Where he was when he texted? They of course had illegally blagged acess to the mobile phone records including location data. Plenty more where that came from…
