Data Protection Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Blencathra and Lord Paddick

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Wednesday 13th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Paddick]

I am grateful for the noble Lord’s intervention. Obviously, despite the fact that we won the court case in the end and that there was a small apology in the said newspaper—I think it was on page 6—I was not able to recover the serious damage done to my reputation. I am grateful to be standing here in the House today to address noble Lords on this issue, but there are many people whose reputations have not recovered.

[Lord Blencathra]

Perhaps I may give the noble Lord some information which he may not have been aware of, as he may have left the Met by then. The reason that maybe up to 100 people were able to sue on the hacking was because their names appeared in the Mulcaire diaries, and the Met team kindly went and told every single person who had possibly been hacked, “They’re after you. You’re in Mulcaire’s diaries and you may care to contact some lawyers. Here are some lawyers who are doing a group action. If you join that, there is no great risk to yourself—you will be in there with a lot of others. The lawyers will be there on a no-win no-fee basis and you’re perfectly safe to do it”. That is why most of those people were able to go together in a joint action, but the thousands of individuals do not have a hope.