Sleuth says reporters sent him chasing celebs

A private detective employed by News International to put hundreds of people under surveillance has said he was commissioned by as many as 30 journalists working on the News of the World, the British Sunday paper closed this year because of the scandal about phones being hacked.

Derek Webb, who was paid to follow a string of people - including Princes William and Harry, Angelina Jolie and Tom Watson, the MP spearheading Parliament's investigations into phone hacking - has said he will act as a witness if any of them opt to take legal action against NI.

While surveillance is not illegal, Webb's pledge suggests that NI could find itself facing legal action from people who claim their privacy has been invaded - in addition to the scores of claims brought against it by victims of phone hacking.

Webb's claims, which suggest there was a culture of surveillance that permeated the NOTW newsroom, are contained in a dossier detailing the work the former undercover police officer did for NI from 2003.

The dossier, containing the names of around 150 celebrities and scores of non-famous targets, will be submitted to the Leveson inquiry investigating journalistic practices. They will also include details of one surveillance operation that Webb undertook on behalf of the Sun, a daily paper also owned by NI. Webb said he had decided to go public with his claims after it emerged that video footage he took of two solicitors acting for people whose phones had been hacked by the NOTW was leaked to the media.

He said he feared his name would become embroiled in the phone-hacking allegations and insisted that he had never done anything illegal for NI.

The footage of the two solicitors was apparently contained in a file found in the office of Tom Crone, NI's former legal executive. In September, Crone told a parliamentary inquiry into phone hacking that he "may" have commissioned private investigators "a long time ago, maybe".

Webb said he sent NI a dossier detailing his work for NOTW after it refused to give him the 12 weeks' severance pay offered to other freelancers when the paper closed. "I thought, I'm not having this, so I sent a dossier on every single person I've worked for since 2003 to News International, and they told me to send my dossier back to the police. They're denying all knowledge of me, I think, because of the secret file I was involved with, the dossier about the solicitors."

Webb was arrested in 2007 on the strength of false allegations claiming he was linked to police corruption. The case against Webb and a serving police officer from Hertfordshire was eventually dropped. But he claims much of the material seized by police, including his diaries, was not returned to him and that a computer hard drive was wiped.

Files apparently throwing doubt on the conviction of Kevin Lane, who was jailed for a gangland murder, were also not returned. The exact whereabouts of the files, which are believed to be stored by Hertfordshire police at the request of Thames Valley police who investigated Webb, are unknown.

Webb said their contents could provide the Leveson inquiry with valuable information if they could be retrieved. Webb was just one of several former police officers turned private investigators employed by NOTW.

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