In an another interesting “phone hacking” development, Mr Justice Vos yesterday ordered the Metropolitan Police to disclose documentation to football agent Sky Andrew.  The application arose out of Mr Andrew’s claim is for damages against the News of the World and Glenn Mulcaire, in respect of hacking of his voicemail messages.

Mr Justice Vos has already considered the earlier telephone hacking case in his judgment in Max Clifford’s claim against News Group in March of this year.  We posted a report of the decision at the time.

Mr Andrew was one of the eight named victims at the January 2007 criminal trial of Glenn Mulcaire, Private Investigator and Clive Goodman, Royal Editor of the News of the World. Whilst Goodman and Mulcaire both pleaded guilty in respect of conspiracy to intercept voicemail messages of the three members of the Royal Household, namely Helen Asprey, Paddy Harveson and Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, Glenn Mulcaire also pleaded guilty to separate counts of interception of voicemail communications of five other victims; Max Clifford, Gordon Taylor, Simon Hughes, Elle MacPherson and Mr Andrew.

The trial judge, Mr Justice Gross in sentencing held that in respect of these five other victims, Mr Mulcaire had dealt with “others at the News of the World”.   Mr Justice Gross sentenced Mr Mulcaire to 6 months’ imprisonment and Clive Goodman to 4 months in prison. Max Clifford and Gordon Taylor have already sued the News of the World and Glenn Mulcaire for damages and reportedly settled their claims for very substantial damages. Skylett Andrew is the third victim from the original criminal case who has now taken legal action against the News of the World and Glenn Mulcaire.

Mr Andrew’s Counsel Jeremy Reid sought orders against Mr Mulcaire, which were dealt with by consent and approved by the judge, and for third party disclosure against the Metropolitan Police. Mr Reid told the Court that in respect of third party disclosure there were issues as to the extent to which the Police were entitled to redact the documents to be disclosed ,such as telephone billing records, but at this stage the Police would indicate the nature of the redactions at the time of disclosure, and if necessary the nature and extent of the redactions would have to be considered at a later stage.

Mr Justice Vos said that he had considered the skeleton argument lodged of the Metropolitan Police and was satisfied that it is appropriate to make such an order for non-party disclosure, and made the order that had been agreed between the parties. The Metropolitan Police were ordered to provide the disclosure by 12 January 2011.