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LONDON — The cellphone of a teenage kidnapping victim was hacked and messages deleted before a private investigator was commissioned by a tabloid to work on the story of her disappearance, a police attorney told a panel looking into abuses by Britain’s media on Monday.
The statement raised questions about one of the more emotional accusations against the now defunct News of the World: that the tabloid’s investigator deleted messages from the teen’s phone, giving her parents false hope that the slain 13-year-old was still alive.
Neil Garnham, an attorney representing Scotland Yard, conceded that someone on the News of the World might have deleted messages. But he said it was more likely that they were deleted automatically.
