Libel-ridden anti-left hack features 50 times in court judgment that finds he was ‘likely’ regularly paid for hacking and ‘unlawful information gathering’
Libel-ridden right-wing hack Lee Harpin – who penned a string of very expensive smears against left-wing figures and avidly promoted the antisemitism scam against supporters of Jeremy Corbyn – features no fewer than fifty times in the High Court’s judgment against Mirror Group Newspapers and the Duke of Sussex et al concerning phone hacking and invasions of privacy.
And the judge, Mr Justice Fancourt, notes at length that he is satisfied that Harpin – let off by the Met at the time of the phone-hacking scandal – was heavily involved in hacking on behalf of the newspaper. So heavily that most of his payments from the paper as a ‘stringer’ or freelancer over a three-year period were related to ‘unlawful information gathering’ (UIG), including hacking:
The obvious inference is that, as a stringer, Mr Harpin continued to hack phones and do other UIG, as he did before then and afterwards at The People. I am satisfied that the majority of his payments from MGN are likely to have been in respect of UIG. The fact that the odd tip or story can be identified which might have a legitimate source does not detract from this conclusion.
…The majority of his payments from MGN from 2003-2005 are likely to have been in respect of UIG.
So heavily involved was Harpin that he was known to colleagues as the ‘Dauphin of hacking’:
Lee Harpin, the “Dauphin of hacking”, was senior news editor and then deputy news editor and head of news over the period 2005-2012…
The claimants’ case is that while a stringer Mr Harpin should be assumed to have continued to use all the UIG resources that he used while an employed journalist, in particular phone hacking. Mr Basham’s sources in Fleet Street had described Mr Scott as the “king of news hacking” and Mr Harpin as the phone hacking “Dauphin”. This is backed up by emails disclosed from 2004 and 2005 and call data.
And the judge concluded that Harpin was deeply involved in the hacking of the nanny employed by David and Victoria Beckham:
Documents disclosed by MGN show that Lee Harpin (news desk) commissioned ELI on 15 April 2005 in relation to “A Gibson” [David and Victoria Beckham’s nanny] and that his extension (3206) then called Ms Gibson’s mobile phone 29 times between 19 and 23 April 2005 – after the publicity of the News of the World deal but before its article was published. I agree with the claimants that the obvious inference here is that Mr Harpin was hacking Ms Gibson’s mobile phone in order to obtain a story before the News of the World published.
And the evidence given by a claimant in an earlier case that Harpin was among several Mirror Group employees who made ‘incriminating’ calls relating to unlawful information gathering:
In her claim against MGN, [Melanie Cantor] obtained disclosure of incriminating call data (400 calls, many of which were made by Ms Weaver, Mr Scott, Mr Buckley and Mr Harpin, among others) and PI invoices naming her and her associates. One Southern Investigations invoice showed that they had obtained her phone bill. Her name and contact details were in Mr Scott’s and Mr Buckley’s Palm Pilots. Ms Cantor’s evidence was not challenged by MGN.
Earlier this year, Harpin was accused in court of trying to ‘blackmail’ his former employers by threatening to reveal all if they did not protect him:
Investor Brian Basham told the court that Harpin:
was blackmailing the company to prevent them from penalising him for his phone-hacking activities by threatening to blow the whistle on everything he knew about their phone-hacking problem if they did.
Harpin denied the allegations.
Harpin moved on to the Jewish Chronicle, penning a string of attacks on left-wingers during Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour party cost that right-wing publication repeated, ‘substantial’ libel pay-outs and adverse judgments by regulator IPSO. His smears included a notorious ‘litany of lies’ about Liverpool legend Audrey White and antisemitism smears against Nada Al-Sanjari that the paper subsequently admitted were ‘completely unfounded’. He now works for Jewish News.
A Harpin attack on Skwawkbox also backfired when his tweet mocking this site led to donations from supporters happy to give ‘one in the eye’ to the right-wing hack.
And despite the imminent exposure of his record in court, Harpin didn’t seem to learn – and has still been attacking left-wing Jews and regularly getting ‘owned’ for shoddy claims on social media.
Harpin does not appear to have commented publicly on the damning judgment. However, he tweeted on Friday, the day the judgment was issued, to thank unnamed people about ‘all’ the ‘supportive texts and calls’ he claimed to have received about an unspecified matter. The tweet was heavily ‘ratioed’:
Perhaps the pick of the many people using his tweet as an opportunity to comment on his phone-hacking was this:
Harpin has been the Labour right’s go-to hack for smears. Skwawkbox does not expect his disgrace to change that.
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