Gordon Brown makes criminal complaint against Rupert Murdoch's media empire

Source: The Guardian

Sat 26 Apr 2025 13.00 EDT
Last modified on Sun 27 Apr 2025 04.59 EDT


The former prime minister Gordon Brown has made a new complaint to British police over allegations that Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper empire obstructed justice, after stating he has spoken to officers involved in the original phone-hacking inquiry. Writing in the Guardian, Brown says one of the detectives alleged they believed there was “significant evidence” that News Group Newspapers (NGN) deleted millions of emails to pervert the course of justice.

In the article, Brown states that the former officers told him that if they had been aware of the background to the email deletions, they would have pushed for further action. Brown says one former officer told him: “If we had known this in 2011, we would have investigated fully and taken a different course of action including considering arrests.”

Brown writes: “Today I am making a criminal complaint to the Met and CPS alleging that I am, along with many others, a victim of the obstruction of the course of justice by News Group. “This is not an allegation made lightly. It is informed by recently available evidence, and by the statements of senior officers involved in the original investigations into unlawful news gathering, who have now stated to me that they were misled.”

NGN strenuously denies any allegations of evidence destruction. It said the Crown Prosecution Service concluded in 2015 that there was no evidence that company email deletions were carried out to pervert the course of justice.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/apr/26/gordon-brown-criminal-complaint-rupert-murdoch-news-group-newspapers