A former senior Met police officer has cast major doubt over evidence being used to suggest the Mail titles illegally targeted Baroness Doreen Lawrence.
Baroness Lawrence is suing Mail publisher Associated Newspapers, alongside Prince Harry, claiming the paper hacked, bugged and illegally blagged her whilst it campaigned to secure justice for her murdered son.
Her claim against the Mail rests mainly on two sources: Private investigator Gavin Burrows, who was paid tens of thousands by Prince Harry’s research team and has now recanted everything he told them, and former police informant Derek Haslam, who claims he overheard private investigator Jonathan Rees boast about targeting Doreen Lawrence on behalf of the Mail.
He said he gathered evidence about Rees between 1997 and 2006.
Former deputy assistant commissioner of the Met Police David Wood acted as Haslam’s handler as the force sought to gather information about the murder of former business partner of Rees Daniel Morgan.
Wood said: “It was difficult to determine at the time whether Mr Haslam had made the approach to the MPS with a view to obtaining insights for Mr Rees into the MPS’ investigations or if he had a genuine desire to assist the investigation – his friendship with Mr Rees dated back to before the Morgan murder and his subsequent visits to Mr Rees in prison following his 1999 arrest caused me then to question the reliability of Mr Haslam.”
He added that the Met Police established that Rees worked for some newspapers, but he did not recall the Mail titles being amongst them.
He said that Haslam never mentioned Rees working for the Mail titles.
Overall he said Haslam provided limited useful material, he added: “Mr Haslam did not report that Southern Investigations [the business run by Jonathan Rees] were said to be surveilling Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon OОВЕ.”
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