{"id":418876,"date":"2026-02-10T23:43:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T23:43:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/418876\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T23:43:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T23:43:12","slug":"former-daily-mail-editor-tells-hacking-trial-allegations-are-preposterous","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/418876\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Daily Mail editor tells hacking trial allegations are ‘preposterous’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Regarding allegations that hacking and tapping phones was “habitual and widespread” at the Daily Mail, Dacre said: “I utterly reject this. Such blatant illegality would not, I believe, have been countenanced at any level on the paper I edited.”<\/p>\n

He added that he is sure if he was told there was evidence a journalist or agent had blagged information, he would “have been pretty furious”. <\/p>\n

The “sometimes preposterous allegations” have “in the small hours of the night \u2013 reduced me to rage” he wrote in his witness statement, adding that they have had a “deeply upsetting and, in some instances, traumatic impact” on past and present Daily Mail staff. <\/p>\n

Another of the claimants, Baroness Lawrence, is the mother of the murdered black schoolboy Stephen Lawrence. When Stephen was murdered, the Daily Mail campaigned on her behalf.<\/p>\n

In her claim, Lawrence alleges that ANL targeted her with hidden electronic surveillance, tapped her phone and monitored her bank account.<\/p>\n

She previously told the court that she felt like “a victim all over again” <\/a>after she learned of the allegations.<\/p>\n

Dacre told the court on Tuesday that “my heart bleeds for Doreen Lawrence”<\/p>\n

In his statement he added Lawrence’s claims in relation to the campaign “are especially bewildering and bitterly wounding to me personally.”<\/p>\n

At times, the atmosphere between Sherborne and Dacre was combative. <\/p>\n

At one stage, Sherborne suggested “you choose to remember the things that might be helpful, and deliberately forget the things that might be unhelpful”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Regarding allegations that hacking and tapping phones was “habitual and widespread” at the Daily Mail, Dacre said: “I…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418877,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-418876","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-greatbritain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418876\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}