Mark Oaten: Hacked

["Private investigator"] Glenn Mulcaire blagged MP Mark Oaten’s mobile phone details before the News of the World paid the politician’s gay lover £20,000 for details of the affair, a court heard.*

Andrew Edis QC for the prosecution told the jury that Oaten was involved with a young man in January 2006 when the News of the World became aware of the affair.

Edis told the jury: “Mark Oaten was a candidate for the leadership of the Lib Dem Party, but at that time the newspaper detected a relationship between between him and a young man, Ian Chadwick.

"Mr Oaten was married at the time - he may still be married today, I did not mean to imply anything by that - and the newspaper eventually got the story by paying Mr Chadwick £20,000."

Edis told the jury that Muclaire “blagged” Oaten’s phone details from Vodafone before hacking his voicemail ten times.

Mulcaire has already pleaded guilty to phone-hacking.

The prosecution alleges that several senior News of the World staff and executives were involved in a conspiracy to hack the mobile phones of a range of high profile people...

Press Gazette.

* Oaten was outed in 2006 by the NOTW after a rent boy sold his story. He writes about it here.