JOURNALIST-turned-politician, Joan McAlpine, writes today of feeling “violated” after being told by police that her phone is understood to have been hacked into by the News of the World.
Writing in the Daily Record – in her regular Tuesday column for the paper – the former Herald deputy editor and now SNP MSP says: “When Strathclyde Police called me to say they thought my phone had been hacked, my first thought was for my family.
“Did some sleazy hack listen to messages from my teenage daughter?
“I felt more sickened when the detective showed me a copy of a private investigator’s notebook, containing not just my mobile, but my home number and address.
“I am not the grieving parent of a dead soldier or murder victim such as Milly Dowler. I wouldn’t dream of comparing my situation to their suffering.
“Nevertheless, it is extremely unpleasant. You feel violated, as though your home has been broken into.
“It preys on your mind.
“Were they watching the house when my girls came home from school?”
The Record’s sister paper, the Sunday Mail, at the weekend reported the phone of former First Minister, Jack McConnell, is also believed to have been hacked into.
Reports today the Record’s political editor, Magnus Gardham: “He, like McAlpine, was informed by police several months ago that they had been targeted.”
McAlpine uses her column to criticise how news of the alleged hacking against McConnell was a “clumsy attempt [by Labour] to smear [First Minister] Alex Salmond”, for whom McAlpine – a former Scotsman columnist and editor of the Sunday Times Scotiand – is currently an aide.
The News of the World was closed in July amid the phone hacking allegations.
