The former First Minister of Wales says he and his politician wife have been interviewed by the Metropolitan Police because her phone was hacked by News Of The World investigator Glen Mulcaire.
“Julie and I attended Operation Weating about three weeks ago, victims of phone hacking by Glenn Mulcaire in late 2005 and early 2006,” Mr Morgan said.
At the time, Rhodri Morgan was Labour First Minister – Wales’ leading politician, in charge of its devolved government. His wife Julie is Labour assembly member for Cardiff North and was a member of parliament at the time.
Mr Morgan made the revelation at Hacked Off?, a panel debate about press ethics and reform, on which I sat at Cardiff’s Centre for Journalism Studies on Thursday.
He said: “T-Mobile emailed Julie as a customer a few months ago to say…
“‘Sorry to have to tell you, but your phone was hacked or attempted to be hacked and this emerged as part of the News Of The World notebook taken by police.
“‘We haven’t told you until now because we misunderstood that the police investigation by which they got this huge binbag of notebooks was covered by Regulation of investigatory Powers Act. We were wrong about that.’”
Mr Morgan said: “It’s still a complete mystery as to who told them that.”
He claimed T-Mobile’s recent correspondence with his wife stated: “We now advise you to change your PIN number.”
But he said: “It’s five years too bloody late – this all took place in 2005 and 2006. They had the information, told the telephone companies but they seem to have not told us until 2011. That was bizarre.
“We’re still none the wiser as to whether it was the police who advised the phone companies not to tell the victims that they had been hacked or attempted to be hacked. If Julie had been told back in 2005 and 2006, she could have remembered why the News Of The World had hacked the phone of a relatively hard-working, saintly Member of Parliament. We are none the wiser now.
“The information from Operation Weating does not seem to distinguish between attempted phone hacking and actual phone conversations. The police records seem to imply the News Of The World had two long telephone conversations with Julie back in 2005. But Julie can’t remember speaking to the News Of The World.
“These are long phone conversations. Julie can’t believe she would not remember two, four-minute conversations with the News Of the World.”