European Court rules on phone-tapping

Former Deputy Police Chief Wins Eavesdropping Case

The Court in Strasbourg ruled that Alison Halford, the former Merseyside Assistant Chief Constable, had suffered an invasion of her right to privacy when her office phone was tapped after a dispute over her promotion prospects. The Court awarded Miss Halford, once Britain's highest-ranking female police officer, £10,000 in compensation.

Halford: Human rights violated

Government lawyers had accepted a "reasonable likelihood" that her phone had been bugged, but insisted that could not be a breach of human rights because the phones were government property.

The court ruling follows a bitter struggle by Miss Halford to prove she had been discriminated against as a woman by being repeatedly passed over for promotion. She received a six-figure sum in 1992 in compensation for sexual discrimination. But a tribunal rejected a separate claim she made about phone-tapping.

The current Merseyside Chief Constable, James Sharples, commented: "No agency can ever confirm or deny such matters because to do so would undermine the effectiveness of the technique."

The Home Secretary, Jack Straw, is said to be considering the implications of the judgement by the European Court. A spokeswoman said, "He is looking carefully at whether or not any changes are needed to the law."