THE WIFE OF former British prime minister Tony Blair is suing News Corporation and a private investigator over claims that her phone may have been hacked.
Cherie Blair’s solicitor has confirmed that the prominent barrister has launched a claim, the Guardian reports. The claim is “in relation to the unlawful interception of her voicemails.”
The solicitor declined to comment further.
Blair is taking action against News Group Newspapers, a subsidiary of News Corp which published the now-defunct News of The World, as well the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire who has been heavily implicated in the ongoing phone hacking scandal.
The case could prove uncomfortable for Blair’s husband, Tony, the Telegraph points out.
The former PM is the godfather of News Corp owner Rupert Murdoch’s two daughters by his third wife Wendi and was present when they were baptised on the banks of the Jordan river.
Murdoch and his media empire’s support of Blair when he was premier was considered key to his 10 years in government between 1997 and 2007.
News Group settled legal claims over hacking with various public figures including Blair’s former deputy prime minister John Prescott and actor Jude Law last month.
In November, Tony Blair’s former press secretary Alastair Campbell told the Leveson inquiry into media ethics in the UK that he suspected Mrs Blair’s friend Carole Caplin of tipping off newspapers about her diary and her pregnancy.
However he went on to say that since the phone hacking scandal emerged, he had changed his mind. The BBC reports that Campbell’s subsequent apology to Caplin and his evidence at Leveson may have influenced the latest legal move.
It remains unknown as to how news of Mrs Blair’s pregnancy in 1999 was first reported by the Daily Mirror newspaper. She later gave birth to the couple’s fourth child, Leo, in 2000.
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