Ex-UK deputy leader demands police reveal whether he was targeted in phone-tapping scandal

Ex-UK deputy leader wants answers on tabloid scam

LONDON — Britain’s former deputy prime minister is demanding that police reveal whether he was targeted in a phone-tapping scam carried out by a tabloid.

A News of The World journalist has already been jailed over an eavesdropping campaign targeting royalty, celebrities and other public figures.

But the tabloid has always presented the practice as limited and claimed that its then-editor Andrew Coulson had no knowledge of what was happening.

That claim was challenged by a New York Times Magazine report suggesting that the eavesdropping effort was more wide ranging than previously acknowledged.

On Friday, former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott told the BBC that police needed to come clean on whether he or others were hacked.