Reform has accused the National Crime Agency of illegally leaking its MPs’ bank statements to the media. Tice has written to NCA director general Graeme Biggar to demand an urgent investigation…
Both Tice and Nigel Farage were the subject of leaks. Tice has written after the Guardian obtained details of a loan his company received from George Cottrell. Individual donation transactions were flagged to the NCA under its Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) scheme, as about 3,000 do per day. They didn’t warrant further investigation…
Tice claims the Guardian had details from multiple accounts that only he and the NCA could have known, leading him to believe the NCA leaked the material for political reasons. Would be a serious breach from “Britain’s FBI” if true…
Statement by Paul Dacre, Editor-in-Chief of Associated Newspapers Limited, following Harry’s loss in court today:
“Prince Harry wrote a sad book which boasted about his killing of 25 Taliban, his drug-taking and, in cringe-making detail, how he lost his virginity. There isn’t a laundry in the cosmos big enough to wash all the dirty linen he has aired about his own family. For him, to complain about HIS privacy being invaded takes, not just the biscuit, but the whole tin. Poor Harry. I feel sorry for the way a confused and angry young man has been drawn into this case. The bitter irony is that his mother, Diana, liked the Mail. We were her paper. We took her side in her acrimonious break up with Charles. She and I would speak and meet. The Mail’s superb royal reporter was her friend and confidante. The truth is that this trumped-up action – which has cost well over £50 million and wasted a huge amount of valuable court time – should never have been brought to trial. That it did, raises profoundly disturbing questions about the conduct of elements of the legal profession. Today’s verdict is not just a victory for Associated’s magnificent journalists – several of whom have had a terrible toll imposed on their health and lives – but a free press generally. Make no mistake. This was a conspiracy, supported by Hacked Off, to destroy a paper. Financed by the orgy-loving, racist Max Mosley and involving the actor Hugh Grant, it was also a sinister bid to resuscitate Leveson Two and impose statutory regulation on the press which, even now, is rearing its ugly head in Labour’s Media Green Paper.”