It’s not often Xingtone gets the chance to cover scandal and gossip (though David Beckham’s leaked text messages shouldn’t be forgotten), but just occasionally mobile phones find themselves right in the thick of the gossip the entire country’s talking about. Chelsea captain and central defender John Terry is well known to have had an extramarital affair with French lingerie model Vanessa Perroncel, a story made all the more scandalous by Perroncel’s relationship at the time with one of Terry’s team mates, who also had a child with her. But how did the world find out? It turns out that some newspapers may have been using some highly dubious phone hacking techniques to get their best-selling, headline stories.
The lawyer for Perroncel recently revealed that phones belonging to the model and her friends both showed signs of illegal access, and that information from the alleged hacking has appeared in a number of national newspaper articles in the UK. The lawyer has also filed a complaint with the UK information ministry (who have since pointed out that they don’t deal in phone hacking cases, and so won’t be taking on the case, passing no comment on its merits), and written to Vodafone with regards to their level of phone interception security. All papers who have written about the affair have been advised to check the legality of their sources, while Perroncel’s team will be checking every story carefully in an attempt to establish which paper is responsible for the alleged leak.
The likely implications for Vodafone are not too worrying for the firm, with a number of phone hacking cases relating to newspapers still going through the courts, and the judges unlikely to find against the phone company unless they have been neglectful in providing a reasonable level of security to the user of a standard phone. As Perroncel is unlikely to have had any special arrangements with regards to her phone security, it seems extremely unlikely that Vodafone have failed in their standard security measures, so the company is unlikely to face any legal worries. John Terry, on the other hand, has just been given the weekend off to go and hold crunch talks with his wife in Dubai, the result of which will be… who knows. One thing is for sure: he’s probably not in love with his mobile phone right now.
