According to the Bloomberg newswire, the Metropolitan Police is asking the courts to prevent Coogan's law firm from revealing which journalist managers instructed Glen Mulcaire - the private detective at the heart of the voicemailgate saga - to hack in to the voice mailboxes of a number of celebrities.
Bloomberg reports that Mulcaire revealed the names of the managers to Coogan's law firm last Friday, after a court ruled that he could not avoid naming the managers that asked him to “intercept phone messages left for six public figures.”
The Metropolitan Police, says the newswire, “which is investigating the extent of hacking by the tabloid, wants a court to order the names kept secret,” adding that the police are also investigating whether police officers were paid for news and whether journalists hacked computers for stories.
The UK Court of Appeal, the newswire goes on to say, has backed a High Court ruling that having the identities of journalists who instructed Mulcaire “could assist Coogan in proving there was a conspiracy at News of the World and that hacking was done on an industrial scale.”
The people arrested in connection with the voicemailgate saga include former News of the World editors Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson; former managing editor Stuart Kuttner; former assistant editor Greg Miskiw; former news editor Ian Edmondson and former features writer Dan Evans.