Commissioner ends NOTW email inquiry

The Information Commissioner has closed an investigation into thousands of emails sent between journalists and executives at the News of the World, which a senior editor claimed had been lost during a data transfer to India.

Christopher Graham accepted an "assurance" from News Group Newspapers (NGN), the publisher of the NOTW, that the tranche of data, which covered 2005-06 when a private detective employed by the paper was illegally listening to voicemails, had never been sent abroad and remained in the UK.

The inquiry was launched after Bob Bird, editor of the NOTW's Scottish edition, told the perjury trial of Scottish politician Tommy Sheridan that emails requested by the former MSP's legal team had vanished during a botched operation to archive material in India.

Mr Graham said: "We have received assurances from [NGN] that in fact no emails were transferred to India. I have seen no evidence to contradict that."