Intercepting personal voicemail unacceptable breach of privacy

12.00.00am GMT Wed 29th Nov 2006

Commenting on the trial of Clive Goodman for plotting to intercept private phone messages, Simon Hughes, MP for North Southwark and Bermondsey and Liberal Democrat Shadow Constitutional Affairs Secretary said:

"Intercepting personal voicemail messages is a completely unacceptable breach of privacy - whether the victim is a royal prince, a politician, or someone completely out of the public eye.

"People who leave messages and those intended to receive them are all entitled to have private conversations. We live in an age where invasions of privacy are becoming more frequent. This does not make the practice any more acceptable.

"Tapping phones or intercepting messages should only be done with the authority of the law in the most exceptional cases and in the public interest. Tracking down terrorists is the obvious topical example.

"I hope that all newspapers, and journalists more widely, and all their representative bodies will now confirm that this practice is unacceptable and that nobody else will have their privacy invaded in the same way.

"I have long held the view that courts should be allowed to deprive those responsible for this sort of behaviour of their liberty because it is a serious offence to interfere with the freedoms of others.

"Some people, like me, are resilient enough to take this sort of behaviour more or less in their stride, but other people are not, and nobody should have to."