Special Advisor to Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg at the time of the Inquiry, responsible for advising him in eight departments, including the Cabinet Office, Department of Culture, Media and Sport, Department for Work and Pensions, Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Justice. Was questioned on an email exchange with Frederic Michel in 2010 when Michel was director of public affairs for News Corp. Colborne agreed that BskyB had come up in conversation but disputed Michel's account.
Hughes was Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats from 2010 to 2014, and from 2013 until 2015 was Minister of State at the Ministry of Justice. In 2012, he gave lengthy evidence to the Inquiry about the extent of hacking of his private phone from 2002 to 2006, when details of his private relationships had been made public and The Sun had reported that Hughes had made telephone calls to a gay chat service. He learnt of the full extent of the hacking only after Glenn Mulcaire and Clive Goodman were convicted of illegally intercepting voicemails on behalf of the News of the World in 2007. Hughes discovered that Mulcaire had collected extensive information about his contacts, private hotline and phone calls. Hughes told the Inquiry that he had seen the emergence of an increasingly unhealthy relationship between politicians and the Murdoch newspapers.
British Labour Party MP for Watford 1997-2010 and Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Ministry of Justice from 2009 to 2010. Ward told Inquiry that within weeks of becoming an MP she was subject to intense media intrusion and threats, including from the News of the World, purporting to have compromising photographs of her.
