LONDON, Nov. 23 (UPI) -- The parents of a murder victim and a former soccer star testified Tuesday that the British press contributed to suicides in their families.
Jim and Margaret Watson, testifying before a panel headed by Justice Brian Leveson investigating the news media, said their son, Alan, took his own life at age 15 in 1992 more than a year after his sister, Diane, was stabbed by another girl at their Glasgow school, The Daily Telegraph reported. He had copies of news articles about Diane in his possession when he died.
Margaret Watson said a reporter for the Glasgow Herald misrepresented the killing because he was campaigning for better treatment for young criminals, the Daily Record of Glasgow said.
Garry Flitcroft, former captain of the Blackburn Rovers and now a coach with the Chorley Football Club, told the commission he suspects the Sunday People obtained details of his sex life by hacking his cellphone, the Metro reported. He acknowledged he cannot prove that.
Flitcroft said his father, who suffered from depression, stopped watching him play because of the heckling from the stands after the Court of Appeal threw out an injunction against the People running the story in 2002. The scandal might be partly to blame for his father's suicide in 2002, he said.
The Leveson Inquiry was set up in July after revelations that the now-closed News of the World had hacked the cellphone of a missing schoolgirl in 2002. She was later found dead.
