The editor of The Times has today apologised, after he admitted a journalist had hacked into a serving police officer’s email account.
In 2009, The Times newspaper outed Lancashire detective Richard Horton, revealing him to be the anonymous author of the NightJack blog.
The paper had successfully overturned an injunction preventing it from identifying the blog’s author, arguing that the information was in the public’s interest and that the author’s identity had been obtained through legitimate journalistic means.
However, emails presented at the Leveson Inquiry today reveal that a Times journalist, named as Patrick Foster, hacked into the email account of the police blogger.
Editor James Harding told the inquiry into press standards that he regretted the intrusion and expected “better of The Times”.
The Leveson Inquiry heard that The Times fought its battle in the courts to unmask the NightJack blogger *after* its reporter had told management that he had accessed Horton’s…
Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.
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