Report: BBC used jailed News of the World private detective

The BBC Panorama programme has admitted employing the services of a jailed private detective who hacked emails for the News of the World.

The BBC has confirmed to The Independent that Philip Campbell Smith, a former British Army intelligence officer who is currently in prison after being convicted of illegally accessing information from the police and customs and revenue was used on one occasion by the Panorama team.

The BBC said he was used by the programme to trace individuals and not to obtain confidential information, according to The Independent.

Today’s report said:

After the News of the World was found to have hacked the murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler’s mobile phone, the BBC’s Director-General, Mark Thompson, ordered an internal review. The review concluded that Campbell Smith had been used for investigative work on the programme.

Although details of the review’s findings were passed to the Leveson Inquiry, the BBC did not release to Scotland Yard, in full, a two-hour covertly filmed interview in which Campbell Smith discusses his connections and work for Panorama. After a recent court order, the BBC handed over the unedited filming to Scotland Yard