Sun publisher to be searched over ‘fake security threat’ claims, court hears

NGN accused of claiming Gordon Brown had seen Rebekah Brooks’ emails to justify deleting millions of messages amid phone-hacking investigation

Documents linked to a former News International executive can be searched over claims Rupert Murdoch’s media company falsely implicated Gordon Brown and Tom Watson in a “fake security threat” to “justify” the deletion of millions of emails, the high court heard.

News Group Newspapers (NGN), publisher of the Sun and defunct News of the World, faces accusations it created a “false narrative” that the Labour peer Lord Watson conspired with the ex-prime minister to obtain stolen data as part of a bid to conceal wrongdoing and “subvert” police investigations into the phone-hacking scandal.