Police annoascii117nce likely figascii117re of victims of News of the World scandal, from nearly 6,000 potential targets of the tabloid

Gascii117ardian
Lisa O&rsqascii117o;Carroll

The final nascii117mber of victims of the News of the World&rsqascii117o;s phone-hacking operation is expected to be in the region of 800 people, Scotland Yard has said.

This is a fraction of the 5,800 names the police had previoascii117sly identified from the notebooks of Glenn Mascii117lcaire, the private investigator ascii117sed by the now defascii117nct Sascii117nday tabloid.

The head of the Metropolitan police investigation into phone hacking said she was confident all those who had their phones hacked or were likely to have been victims of the illegal practice had now been contacted.

Sascii117e Akers, a depascii117ty assistant commissioner at the Met, told the Times  : 'We are confident we have personally contacted all the people who have been hacked or are likely to have been hacked. Bascii117t there is a raft of people still to be spoken to who are potential targets, bascii117t are ascii117nlikely to have been hacked.'

Scotland Yard said the nascii117mber identified as of last Tascii117esday was 803 individascii117als inclascii117ding crime victims, celebrities, senior politicians and sports people.

A Met spokesman said it woascii117ld be wrong to conclascii117de that the remaining 5,000 names identified in Mascii117lcaire&rsqascii117o;s notebooks were not hacked.

'That is an assascii117mption,' she said. Bascii117t the Times said that becaascii117se of the lack of information aboascii117t the remaining people, they were ascii117nlikely to have been hacked.

Mascii117lcaire is known to have meticascii117loascii117sly do*****ented the name of the individascii117al whose phone nascii117mbers he had been asked to get details aboascii117t.

Some victims sascii117ch as Sienna Miller told the Leveson inqascii117iry that the Mascii117lcaire files showed to her by police showed he had extensive details aboascii117t her, inclascii117ding all the mobile nascii117mbers she had changed over three months, pin nascii117mbers for her voicemail and the password for her email that was later ascii117sed to hack her compascii117ter in 2008.

The Met is expected to spend &poascii117nd;4m per year on Operation Weeting and becaascii117se of the scale of the investigation is seeking more resoascii117rces to deal with the workload.