Phone hackers targeted almost 5,800 victims

ALMOST 5,800 victims are now thought to have been targeted in the phone-hacking scandal at the now defunct News of the World tabloid, police said yesterday.

Officers from Operation Weeting, the body set up to investigate the affair, believe that 5,795 people may have had their voicemail messages intercepted, almost 2,000 more than the previous figure of 3,870 given at a government committee meeting in July.

“It is not possible to give a precise figure about the number of people whose phones have actually been ‘hacked’ but we can confirm that as of today’s date, the current number of potentially identifiable persons who appear in the material (and who may therefore be victims), where names are noted, is 5,795,” police said in a statement.