Gordon Brown attacks Murdoch group over '˜violations'

John Ford says he was contracted by the Murdoch paper between 1995 and 2010, during which he claims he stole politicians’ rubbish for information, hacked their phones and bank accounts.

It is understood that many of his claims regard senior Labour politicians of the time, like Mr Brown and Tony Blair.

Today Mr Brown said: “According to the new evidence from John Ford - which corresponds with other information I have - there were at least 25, and up to 40, violations of the criminal law by the Murdoch group including impersonation, reverse engineering my phone and blagging, for no reason other than to discredit someone they wanted to undermine for their own reasons.

“This new evidence shows that even when under oath, what was then News International misled the Leveson Inquiry.

“I am now calling for police to investigate this criminal wrongdoing.”