Brown 'in tears' over son's story
Former British prime minister Gordon Brown accused the Sunday Times today of using criminal activity to intrude into his private family life.
He spoke out after it emerged that “blaggers” had been used to access personal files, including his bank account.
Mr Brown said he and his wife were “in tears” after being told by the Sun that it was going to publish the story about his son’s cystic fibrosis, gleaned from medical files.
He told the BBC: “I think that what happened pretty early on in government is that the Sunday Times appear to have got access to my building society account, they got access to my legal files, there is some question mark about what happened to other files – documentation, tax and everything else.
“I’m shocked, I’m genuinely shocked, to find that this happened because of their links with criminals, known criminals, who were undertaking this activity, hired by investigators with the Sunday Times.”
News International sources were quoted last night as saying they were “comfortable” that stories reported by the Sun about Mr Brown’s children were obtained via legitimate means.
In a statement, News International said it noted the allegations about Mr Brown, adding: “So that we can investigate these matters further, we ask that all information concerning these allegations is provided to us.”
Mr Brown added: ``I just can't understand this - if I, with all the protection and all the defences and all the security that a chancellor of the Exchequer or a prime minister, am so vulnerable to unscrupulous tactics, to unlawful tactics, methods that have been used in the way we have found, what about the ordinary citizen?
“What about the person, like the family of Milly Dowler, who are in the most desperate of circumstances, the most difficult occasions in their lives, in huge grief and then they find that they are totally defenceless in this moment of greatest grief from people who are employing these ruthless tactics with links to known criminals.”
Mr Brown said he had evidence that people working for News International used blagging techniques to ``break into'' his lawyers' files and on six occasions obtained private information from his building society by posing as him.
He said he could not think of any legitimate means by which the Sun could have got hold of details of his four-month-old son Fraser’s cystic fibrosis in 2006.
“They will have to explain themselves,” he told the BBC. “I can’t think of any way that the medical condition of a child can be put into the public arena legitimately unless the doctor makes a statement or the family makes a statement.
“I make no claims, but the fact of the matter is that I had my bank accounts broken into, I had my lawyers’ files effectively blagged, my tax returns went missing at one point.
“I don’t know how all this happened, but I do know one thing: that in two of those instances there is absolute proof that News International was involved in hiring people to get this information.”
Mr Brown said he tried to secure a judicial inquiry into the conduct of News International while he was in power, but faced resistance from the police, Home Office and Cabinet Office.
He said he did not know at the time that private investigators were being used to find out personal information from his lawyers and building society, but he had now been given “a huge amount of information” about News International’s activities.
He accused the company of seeking to abuse its power for political gain over issues such as the future of the BBC and the “neutering” of broadcasting regulator Ofcom, but insisted that as prime minister he had resisted it.
And he added: “Of course, the abuse of their power for political gain is something that is going to have to be looked at. Any inquiry that is going to be set up is going to have to look at how News International attempted to abuse political power for political gain.”
