SIR Alex Ferguson's medical records were "blagged" by the News of the World, the Leveson inquiry heard yesterday.
Former sports reporter Matt Driscoll, who made a successful employment tribunal claim for disability discrimination after he was sacked by the title, told the inquiry that he had heard that the Manchester United manager was suffering health problems.
Mr Driscoll said he had telephoned his football contacts but was unable to confirm the story. "In the end I had to go to my sports desk and say, 'I really don't think I can get any further forward with this'," he said.
Mr Driscoll told the inquiry: "My editor said, 'leave it with me, we'll see what we can come up with'. And then I'm pretty certain it was that day I got a phone call saying, 'you're absolutely right with the story'."
He said the paper had obtained Sir Alex's medical records by sending a fax to a hospital claiming to be a specialist in need of confidential information. The number of times that technique worked was "incredible", he told the inquiry.
Mr Driscoll said Sir Alex was contacted about the story and, since the medical issue was not serious, a deal was done between both parties.
He said: "I think there was a phone call to that manager to tell him what we knew and that he was very upset about it and said that there was no way he wanted that story to appear."
He continued: "It was put to Alex Ferguson that we wouldn't use this information."
In return, Mr Driscoll said, "he then started co-operating with the paper".
Mr Driscoll, who worked for the newspaper from June 1997 until April 2007, said journalists never questioned the ethics of techniques used or their editors' decisions. He said the employment tribunal had "finished" his career because he was seen as "the guy who's taken on the bosses". Mr Driscoll was later diagnosed with depression and said his illness was "entirely" down to working conditions at the newspaper.
He denied he had an "axe to grind" against his former employer, and claimed he was simply "unhappy" that journalists were being forced to take the blame for the hacking scandal.
Earlier, the brother of a former News of the World showbusiness reporter who died after speaking out about phone hacking said the pair had "shared a lot of secrets".
Sean Hoare, 48, who suffered from alcoholic liver disease, was found dead at his home in Watford in July after he started drinking again as pressure mounted over claims he was a phone-hacking whistleblower.
His brother Stuart told the Leveson Inquiry: "I felt very, very strongly that someone had to represent my brother."
When asked by Carine Patry Hoskins, counsel to the inquiry, what he knew of the "dark arts" of journalism, Mr Hoare replied he did not witness any incidents, but possessed details of them.
He said: "There are emails in existence which support Sean's description of a practice referred to as the dark arts."
The inquiry will hear evidence from Piers Morgan later today.
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