Reporter faces jail for Royal phone tapping

Royal family correspondent Clive Goodman, 48, from Putney, and Glen Mulcaire, 35, from Sutton, were charged following complaints from the Prince of Wales office which led to a police investigation.

Goodman and Mulcaire appear before Horseferry Magistrates' Court today faced with one charge of intercepting voicemail message on or before August 8 this year and eight counts of intercepting messages between January and May this year. Goodman was arrested at his Putney home last Tuesday and questioned at Charing Cross police station before being charged.

Similarly, Mulcaire was arrested at his Sutton home before being questioned and charged.

A third man, aged 50, from Sutton, was also arrested but released on police bail last Wednesday.

If found guilty they could face up to two years in jail or a heavy fine.

Last week detectives searched several business premises as part of their investigation, including the east London offices of News International, which owns the News of the World.

Over the past five years, The News of the World has broken a series of stories involving the private lives of Royal Family members.

It is not against the code of the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) to intercept phone messages which have a major public interest.

This might include tapping information on suspected terrorist plots.

PCC chairman Sir Christopher Meyer said: "The Press Complaints Commission sets out in clause 10 of its code of practice that the press must not intercept private or mobile telephone calls, messages or emails and a whole bunch of other things which come under the heading of clandestine devices and subterfuge.

"You have to have a very high bar of public interest to justify this and so that's enshrined in our constitution."

A News of the World spokeswoman would only confirm a police investigation was taking place and would not say whether Goodman had been suspended from work.