\n<\/p>\n
A senior former Mail on Sunday journalist has denied commissioning a \u201cblag\u201d of sensitive medical information about Sadie Frost that the actor had not even told her own mother.<\/p>\n
At the high court, Katie Nicholl, a former diary editor and royal editor at the paper, was accused of using blagged information from a private investigator to uncover \u201cextraordinarily intrusive\u201d details of Frost\u2019s medical history.<\/p>\n
Frost is one of a group of seven people, including Prince Harry, alleging that Associated Newspapers Ltd (ANL), which publishes the Mail on Sunday and the Daily Mail, used unlawful information gathering such as blagging, hacking and phone tapping to obtain stories over two decades.<\/p>\n
ANL denies all the accusations of wrongdoing, describing them as lurid and preposterous.<\/p>\n
Nicholl is a significant figure in the case, as her name appears on many of the stories that Frost, the Duke of Sussex and others have complained about.<\/p>\n
David Sherborne, the lead barrister for the claimants, spent a lot of time focusing on a passage in Nicholl\u2019s notebook referring to Frost\u2019s ectopic pregnancy. Nicholl prepared the story in autumn 2003 but it was never published.<\/p>\n
Frost\u2019s legal team said she did not tell her sisters or even her own mother about the pregnancy and subsequent termination.<\/p>\n
Nicholl wrote in her notebook: \u201cSadie Frost: Had some note re: Ultrascan. Yes, she is having that kind of treatment. She went for an ultrasound. She is pregnant.\u201d<\/p>\n
It also identified Frost\u2019s doctor and said \u201cshe was recently treated in March Aug. 6 saw psychologist\u201d.<\/p>\n
Sherborne said there was a reference in the margin to \u201cSusie\u201d, which he said was a reference to Susie Mallis from the private investigation firm ELI.<\/p>\n
The claimants also point to ELI payment notes days later, labelled \u201cKatie Nicholls Urgent Enq\u201d and \u201cK Nicholl\u2019s Searches\u201d.<\/p>\n
Sherborne put it to Nicholl that her notes documented \u201can obvious medical blag\u201d of Frost\u2019s records. But Nicholl said she had never asked anyone to blag medical records and did not recall using ELI.<\/p>\n
She said her notes recorded a conversation with the freelance journalist Sharon Feinstein, whom she said was the source of the tip about Frost\u2019s pregnancy. She said Feinstein had \u201ca very, very good source\u201d within Frost\u2019s inner circle. Feinstein has not given evidence in the case.<\/p>\n
Nicholl also said her original note may have referred to \u201cSadie\u201d rather than \u201cSusie\u201d. \u201cI can\u2019t be 100% sure that it says Susie,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Sherborne put it to her that she had \u201clied about this in your witness statement to try to provide some other explanation to the obvious one\u201d, that the information had come from an ELI blag of medical records.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have not lied at all,\u201d Nicholl said.<\/p>\n
Later in her notebook, Nicholl records Frost \u201cfound out about ectopic pregnancy beginning of last week\u201d. Her notes add \u201cshe\u2019s very angry with herself\u201d and \u201cthey [Frost and her partner] were using condoms\u201d.<\/p>\n
Sherborne claimed this information had been obtained by intercepting the voicemails of those involved.<\/p>\n
This was vehemently denied by Nicholl, who said it actually came from a second exchange with Feinstein. Nicholl said: \u201cLet me be quite categorical: I have never intercepted voicemails. I have never asked anyone to intercept voicemails \u2026 I can\u2019t be any more clear or categorical.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said the story had not been published because it had been denied by Frost and because the actor had made a legal threat after being confronted over it.<\/p>\n
The case continues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A senior former Mail on Sunday journalist has denied commissioning a \u201cblag\u201d of sensitive medical information about Sadie Frost that the actor had not even told her own mother. At the high court, Katie Nicholl, a former diary editor and royal editor at the paper, was accused of using blagged information from a private investigator<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46306,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[23679,2376,23677,23682,23681,5543,8288,3140,23678,23680,11988],"class_list":{"0":"post-46305","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-blag","9":"tag-denies","10":"tag-exmail","11":"tag-frost","12":"tag-frosts","13":"tag-information","14":"tag-journalist","15":"tag-medical","16":"tag-ordering","17":"tag-sadie","18":"tag-sunday"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/46306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}