Britain’s Guardian newspaper was forced to apologise to Rupert Murdoch’s The Sun on Wednesday for falsely alleging that the tabloid’s reporters doorstepped a lawyer at the phone-hacking enquiry. In an unwelcome twist for the left-leaning paper which has led efforts to expose hacking at Murdoch’s now-defunct News of the World weekly tabloid, the Guardian admitted in court that its front-page claim was wrong.
It also published a correction on its website, saying: “In a piece sketching the Leveson inquiry we incorrectly stated that the Sun newspaper sent a reporter to the home of a junior counsel to the Inquiry.
“The Sun did not send a reporter to the barrister’s home.
We apologise for the error and any suggestion that there was an intention by the Sun to show a lack of respect to the Inquiry or Lord Justice Leveson.”
The lawyer in question, Carine Patry Hoskins, became the subject of a brief craze on Twitter on Monday, when she was dubbed “womanontheleft” by users after appearing in the background of the live televised enquiry hearing. The enquiry, chaired by senior judge Brian Leveson, was commissioned by Prime Minister David Cameron in July after revelations of widespread phone-hacking at the News of the World.
