Reports: Independent News and Media destroyed 950 tapes amid watchdog investigation

Independent News and Media has destroyed tapes during a watchdog investigation, according to reports.

The Sunday Business Post and Sunday Times are reporting the tapes at the centre of a data breach controversy were shredded in February.

The destruction of 950 tapes and back-up tapes took place just days before INM's Chairman Leslie Buckley stood down.

The papers say INM claims in documents filed by them to the High Court that INM authorised the shredding on February 27 for "housekeeping" reasons.

They insisted that the tapes were obsolete and they carried out standard practice for dealing with them.

It is reported that an offshore company controlled by Denis O’Brien, the biggest shareholder in the group, paid for the operation in 2014.

The firm's email archive was among the items shredded by a Dublin firm, AMI Waste, in a three-hour operation after they were interrogated by outside consultants on the instructions of INM's chairman at the time, Leslie Buckley.