London - The mobile hacking scandal took an unexpected twist this weekend with police demanding to know the ID of a whistleblower who grassed up The Guardian about, er, stuff.
The paper blew the lid on Red Top snooping of murdered Surrey schoolgirl Milly Dowler's mobile phone messages in an eavesdropping story that gobsmacked the nation.
Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger said today that journalists' sources were confidential - protected from unwarranted state intrusion following years of industry precedent.
But a New-Broom-At-The-Yard in the form of Met Commissioner Bernard Ho-Gone How (sic) has changed all that and an injunction under the Official secrets Act was served on the paper yesterday.
The last time such draconian measures were conjured up was in 1985 when ex-MI5 spook Peter Wright published his memoir Spycatcher about KGB double agents in the snooping service who answered only to Margaret Thatcher.
The best selling tome became the most pilfered hardback in UK public libraries amid the mothballing of any new print run.
The secrecy injunction hearing will be heard on 23 September, a day notable for being the Autumn Equinox and 'official' birthday of Cherry Bush QC.
