Amy Winehouse Phone was Hacked, Reporter Claims

Amy Winehouse had her telephone and medical records accessed by tabloid newspapers

Reuters 

Add the late Amy Winehouse to the list of UK celebrities who were phone hacked.

The singer, whose was found dead at her London home on Saturday, had her telephone and medical records accessed by tabloid newspapers, according to reporter Charles Lavery.

Lavery, formerly of the Scottish newspaper the Sunday Mail, writes on his Wordpress blog that Winehouse's parents and sometime lover Blake Fielder-Civil were also targeted by the tabloids. In addition, Winehouse's brother Alex's phones and personal data were also scanned by reporters.

Among other claims, Lavery said papers used hacking to get the times when Winehouse would arrive at various rehab clinics so they could have photographers camped out to get pictures of her entering or leaving treatment.

Lavery does not specify which papers hacked the singer's phone, so it's not known if the paper responsible was the recently shuttered News of the World. A spokesperson for News of the World's parent company News Corp. did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Lavery has been critical in recent weeks of the kind of news-gathering practices, such as bribery and hacking, that have landed News Corp.'s UK operations in a mushrooming scandal. However, he has contended that the practices extend to Scottish papers.

Lavery recently claimed that Scottish newspapers paid police for information.

Culled from : Thisday online.