December 10

AFP - The police said Saturday the final number of victims of phone hacking by Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World will be around 800 people, far fewer than originally thought.

The Scotland Yard officer leading the investigation into the scandal at the now-defunct tabloid said police had been in touch with everyone whose mobile phone voicemails were illegally accessed.

As late as a month ago Scotland Yard had said it identified 5,800 potential hacking victims, based largely on names found in the notes of Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator jailed for phone-hacking in 2007.

“We are confident we have personally contacted all the people who have been hacked or are likely to have been hacked,” Scotland Yard Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers said in a statement.

“But there is a raft of people still to be spoken to who are potential targets, but are unlikely to have been hacked.”

A Scotland Yard spokesman said: “Operation Weeting (the hacking probe) has been in contact with or been contacted by 2,037 people, of which in the region of 803 are ‘victims’, whose names have appeared in the material.”