The UK Supreme Court has granted private investigator Glenn Mulcaire permission to appeal against the ruling of the Court of Appeal, on 1 February 2012, that he could not claim privilege against self-incrimination in the phone hacking litigation.   The appeal will be heard on the 9 and 10 May 2012.

Mr Mulcaire who pleaded guilty to phone hacking in 2006 and was sentenced to six month’s imprisonment was arrested by Operation Weeting officers in December 2011.  He is seeking to avoid providing information to claimants in phone hacking cases on the basis that this would incriminate him in any future criminal prosecution.

On 1 February 2012, in their judgment in the case of Coogan and Phillips v NGN and Mulcaire  ([2012] EWCA Civ 48) the Court of Appeal (Lord Judge, Lord Neuberger and Maurice Kay LJ) unanimously upheld the rulings of Mann J and Vos J that, as a result of the operation of section 72 of the Senior Courts Act 1981, Mr Mulcaire was not entitled to rely on his privilege against self-incrimination in refusing to answer questions put to him by the two claimants.  We had a case comment on the Court of Appeal decision at the time.  There was also a comment on the 5RB website.

Permission was granted on the papers by three judges on the papers despite the fact that Mr Coogan’s claim has now been settled (see his statement here).