Mother of murdered Sarah Payne ‘targeted by phone hackers’

Police have told Sara Payne that her phone may have been hacked by private investigator Glenn Mulcaire who was employed in the 2000s by the News of the World.

In early July, it emerged that Ms Payne was contacted by police and told she had not been hacked.

Ms Payne’s friend Shy Keenan has confirmed to the Press Association that Scotland Yard has been in touch again to confirm her name is, in fact, in Mr Mulcaire’s notebooks. Mulcaire served a four-month jail term for hacking in 2007.

More from Channel 4 News: Judge sets out phone-hacking inquiry

A mobile phone was given to Ms Payne by the NoW, as then editor Rebekah Brooks launched a campaign to protect children from paedophiles following Sarah Payne’s murder in 2000.

Ms Brooks has issued a statement saying that she finds the new allegations “abhorrent” because Sara Payne is a “dear friend”.

She added: “For the benefit of the campaign for Sarah’s Law, the News of the World have provided Sara with a mobile telephone for the last eleven years. It was not a personal gift.”

MP Chris Bryant has accused Rebekah Brooks of “utter hypocrisy” and told Channel 4 News he was reminded of the quote from Hamlet that “one may smile and smile and be a villain”.

Mr Bryant was told in 2010 that his phone was hacked and has since been a high-profile figure in the campaign.

Referring to a speech given by Ms Brooks on the day the closure of the NoW was announced, he added that she had admitted “that this was going to get worse”.

The Metropolitan Police was not immediately available for comment. A Downing Street spokesperson has called the claim “shocking”.

Statement from Rebekah Brooks, former News of the World editor:
"These allegations are abhorrent and particularly upsetting as Sara Payne is dear friend.
"For the benefit of the campaign for Sarahs Law, the News of the World have provided Sara with a mobile telephone for the last eleven years. It was not a personal gift.
"The idea that anyone on the newspaper knew that Sara or the campaign team were targeted by Mr Mulcaire is unthinkable. 
The idea of her being targeted is beyond my comprehension. 
"It is imperative for Sara and the other victims of crime that these allegations are investigated and those culpable brought to justice."

Sarah’s Law

Under Rebekah Brooks’ editorship, the NoW started a campaign for legislation that became known as Sarah’s Law – a naming and shaming project to identify paedophiles.

The campaign boosted circulation and began the relationship between the paper and Ms Payne. She wrote a column for the final edition of the NoW in which she spoke of it being a “force for good”.

She said that she felt “like a friend had just died” when the paper closed down. She referred to phone-hacking allegations as disgusting, but spoke of the paper’s journalists as “good and trusted friends”.

She wrote that the NoW was a “paper that cares and a voice for the people” and said: “The saddest thing of all is the great people I have come to know, trust and respect did no wrong.

“They are not the guilty few and they have been as much a part of our Sundays as the roast over the years.”

Tom Watson, the Labour MP who took part in the questioning of Rupert and James Murdoch in parliament, tweeted on Thursday afternoon “the hacking scandal is about nosedive to a whole new low” shortly before the new allegations emerged.