Times journalist Patrick Foster revealed the identity of the famous blog “Nightjack” author. He unveiled that the anonymous author was Richard Horton. He hacked into the Hotmail of the Detective Constable of time and got the information.
At that moment, Times didn’t know and had not provided any support for illegal hacking. But when he admitted his “dirty deed” to their legal manager, Alastair Brett, they didn’t take action against him.
The Times home news editor, Martin Barrow, took Foster to Brett, where he confessed. Alastair was furious at Foster’s work, but in the presence of his line manager, he sorted some ways. But when Horton took legal actions, Brett was surprised, and that’s how Foster’s clever but foolish move put Times under challenging times.
Times decided not to publish Foster’s story after first hearing. Instead, they tried to imply they had established Horton’s identity by all public domains. They got this “golden bullet” in the form of comments Horton left on his brother’s Facebook page.
They misled the High court and said the allegation of hacking was baseless. Somehow the high court took it and accepted the story that Foster deducted Horton’s identity from the comments. As a result, Horton lost the case and injunction. Foster was set free, but later, he was dismissed from the Times on an unrelated matter.
But that’s not all! Police arrested Foster on August 29th, 2012, as a part of Scotland Yard’s Operation Tuleta. A few years later, one of the Times members admitted that Foster availed Horton’s information by hacking his Hotmail email. They also apologised to Horton.
Times also hid the negative comments on their blogs on the Nightjack’s story. In the comments, >> blob was visible, but “Next” was not. Anyhow, justice had been served, and Foster got his ‘fruit.’
