POLICE HAVE warned Buckingham Palace that they have found evidence that the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall may have had their voicemail hacked by the News of the World.
The heir to the throne and his wife are among at least 10 members of the royal household who have now been warned they were targeted for hacking, according to police records. Only five had previously been identified.
A palace source yesterday confirmed that the prince and the duchess had been approached by police recently to be warned that they had been identified as likely targets of the paper’s specialist phone-hacker, Glenn Mulcaire.
A senior executive at the News of the World is also alleged to have approved the paying of money to at least two Scotland Yard protection officers for phone numbers and personal details about the royal family and their friends.
It is believed the News of the World paid a total of £130,000 to between three and five police officers for information.
The developments follow the BBC’s disclosure that the e-mails which News International handed to Scotland Yard in June include evidence that the paper had paid bribes to a royal protection officer in order to obtain private phone numbers for the royal household.
It is believed that personal phone details for Prince Charles and Camilla have been found among the 11,000 pages of handwritten notes that were kept by Mulcaire and which were seized by the original Scotland Yard inquiry in August 2006.
The palace source said: "The question that has to be answered is: if somebody had access to this evidence back then, why didn't they do something about it?" Previous statements by police have identified only five royal victims – Prince William, Prince Harry and three members of staff who were named in the trial of the News of the World'sroyal correspondent, Clive Goodman, in January 2007.
In response to a Freedom of Information request, Scotland Yard has now revealed that it warned a total of 10 royal victims. Eight were warned at the time of the original police inquiry in 2006. Two others were warned only after the Guardianrevived the story in July 2009.
Police are also investigating evidence that a News International executive may have deleted millions of e-mails from an internal archive in an apparent attempt to obstruct Scotland Yard’s inquiry, sources say.
The force yesterday accused News International of undermining its new inquiry into police corruption by leaking confidential details of the investigations to the media. Officers are furious about the BBC’s disclosures about the e-mails.– (Guardian service)