‘Blue-chip dirty tricks ‘bigger than phone hacking’’

The UK’s Serious and Organised Crime Agency police unit has passed to MPs a list of 101 companies and wealthy individuals accused of hiring private investigators to illegally gather confidential information on individuals.

The list, which has been classified as secret for fear of damaging UK economic interests, includes the names of high profile “blue chip” pharmaceutical and law firms, plus insurance companies and financial services groups, and reveals the huge scale of the activity.

The Independent, which has published a string of revelations on the story, condemns the fact that these firms will not be properly prosecuted and that details of this phone hacking – the secret gathering of intelligence from individuals’ mobile answer phones – are kept hidden, while a public inquiry was launched into newspaper phone hacking.