A league table will be published tomorrow for the first time by the Information Commissioner revealing which British newspapers have paid private detectives to help them to obtain information on people in public life.
It follows a police raid, Operation Motorman, on a private detectiveÂ’s home which showed that in three years he had been hired by 305 journalists to carry out 13,343 separate inquiries at a cost of hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, in his report for Parliament, has concluded that the means used by the detective were illicit or probably illicit in more than 11,000 of the assignments. Some of the details of the "Motorman," investigation by the Commissioner are on the web site of Lord Ashcroft, the former Conservative Party treasurer, who obtained them through a series of requests under the Freedom of Information Act.
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