Private investigator Jonathan Rees denies telling Doreen Lawrence he was involved in bugging her
A key whistleblower supporting a legal claim headed by Prince Harry and Doreen Lawrence against the publisher of the Daily Mail appears to have dealt a last-minute blow to the case against the media group.
Just weeks before a high court trial, Jonathan Rees, a private investigator who has supported claims of unlawful news gathering at Associated Newspapers, has contradicted a central allegation in the claimants’ case.
Speaking to C4’s Dispatches, Rees denied admitting to Lawrence that he was involved in bugging her after the racially motivated murder of her 18-year-old son, Stephen, in 1993.
Lawrence had claimed in a witness statement drafted before trial that private investigators had admitted tapping her landlines, hacking her voicemails and bugging a cafe where she used to hold meetings.
Her statement goes on to say that Rees, who has been previously convicted of perverting of the course of justice, confirmed to her that he had done work for the Daily Mail aimed at secretly stealing information about her.
Speaking to C4’s Cathy Newman, Rees said that this was not the case. “I’d been offered by other agents to assist in this surveillance,” he said. “But I didn’t get involved.”
Challenged by Newman that Lawrence’s witness statement was “based on your confirmation that you had done the bugging operation for the Mail”, Rees responds: “Right, well they’re going to have to...
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