April 10 2010
The Guardian
An official inquiry has been launched into the suspected interception of voicemail messages around the tabloid newspaper story of the England football captain, John Terry, and his alleged affair with a French model.
The inquiry, which is being led from the Information Commissioner’s Office, will cause alarm in Fleet Street, where newspapers and the Press Complaints Commission have insisted that this kind of illegal activity has been stamped out since the jailing of a News of the World reporter in January 2007.
The evidence focuses on the phone records of Vanessa Perroncel, who was accused by tabloids of having an affair with Terry, and of one of her close friends, Antonia Graham. One allegation involves the interception of a live telephone call between the two women, a more serious offence than listening to phone messages.
In her first interview since the story broke, published in the Guardian today, Perroncel describes her experience at the hands of the tabloid pack: “It is horrible. It is like a nightmare. Every day you think ‘What else are they going to say about me?’ It is so intrusive and so false. Every day, so many lies – and then people making judgements because of the lies.”
Her lawyers this week formally warned seven national newspapers that she is moving to sue them for breach of privacy over reports which claimed to expose her personal life including her sexual relationships, her medical history, her finances and her wider family’s personal problems. She is also planning to sue for libel over numerous stories about her alleged promiscuity as well as claims that she tried to sell her story for up to £250,000 and that she sold her silence to John Terry for as much as £800,000.
Her recent experience at the hands of the tabloids links to wider concerns about the behaviour of the media, with the unfolding scandal of phone-hacking at the News of the World and the recent publication of a highly critical report by the House of Commons’ media committee. The committee’s chairman, Conservative MP John Whittingdale, said in February that they had been assured that newspapers were no longer involved in intercepting communications. “We would be extremely anxious if further evidence should emerge,” he said.
The ICO’s investigations department is currently working with Vodafone who have confirmed that somebody made an attempt to access Antonia Graham’s voicemail in early February, during the second week of the tabloid storm around John Terry, at a time when she was in regular contact with Perroncel. Separately, O2 have been asked to investigate suspicious activity on Perroncel’s own mobile phone during the same period.
Perroncel’s lawyers are also seeking an inquiry into possible interception of live phone calls. They are particularly concerned about the origin of a widely-used quote from Perroncel, when she was alleged to have told a journalist: “They’re saying I’m some kind of bed-hopping sex maniac. It’s so hurtful – and it’s not true.” Perroncel says she refused to speak to journalists but that the quote is an accurate account of what she said – in a private phone call to Antonia Graham.
Perroncel told the Guardian: “Antonia did not sell that quotation. I know she does not do that. So how did they get it? There have been other times when the same thing has happened – a conversation with a friend ends up word for word in the paper.”
There is no current evidence to indicate who was responsible for any interception, whether it may have been a newspaper or somebody acting on a paper’s behalf or a completely unrelated person. A spokesman for the ICO said: “This incident has been reported to us, and we are looking into it, together with Vodafone, to establish whether an offence has taken place.” Depending on their findings, the ICO may pass the inquiry on to the police.
After weeks of increasingly aggressive stories about Perroncel’s private life, her lawyers have sent formal ‘letters before action’ for breach of privacy to the News of the World and the Sun; the Daily Mirror, the Sunday Mirror and the Sunday People; as well as the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday. Perroncel says she was reluctant to sue: “No-one sues these papers. You see all these ludicrous stories which they publish. I have been told by many peple that you don’t sue the papers.”
Perroncel considered going to the Press Complaints Commission but decided not to: “There are too many newspaper editors who sit on it. From these same papers. It’s a conflict of interest. Who would trust them?”
Perroncel’s lawyer, Charlotte Harris of JMW Solicitors, said: “Suing is a last resort. We hoped the newspapers would stop behaving in this way, this villification. But in the end, we have no option but to get tough.”
