Former FIA chief Max Mosley is reportedly also funding cases brought by Labour MP Chris Bryant and former Met police deputy assistant commissioner Brian Paddick
Credit: Yui Mok/PAJohn Prescott's phone hacking legal action against News of the World publisher News International is being bankrolled by Max Mosley, it has emerged.
The former deputy prime minister, who is pursuing a no-win-no-fee claim against the publisher as well as seeking judicial review of the Met police's phone hacking investigation, revealed the involvement of former FIA chief Mosley at a seminar organised by Mosley's lawyers Collyer Bristow.
Thanking Mosley, Prescott said: "The only reason that I could take judicial review proceedings is because Max Mosley sponsored me."
According to the Times (paywall), Mosley has pledged a total of £3 million to Prescott and up to ten others pursuing legal action against News International over phone hacking.
He told Vanity fair back in May that he had agreed to underwrite the legal costs of "an unknown number of people".
The group receiving financial assistance from Mosley reportedly includes Labour MP Chris Bryant and former Met police deputy assistant commissioner Brian Paddick.
Mosley himself won £60,000 in a privacy case against the now-defunct News of the World after the tabloid claimed he had taken part in a 'Nazi-style' orgy with prostitutes.
He recently lost an appeal to the Grand Chamber in Strasbourg over his attempt to have a "prior notification" law introduced that would force newspapers to warn people in advance of stories to be published about their private lives.
The appeal followed the rejection of Mosley's bid by the European Court of Human Rights.
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