Two former cabinet minsters, a police chief and a journalist are to mount a judicial review into the Metropolitan police's handling of the News of the World phone-hacking scandal.

The former deputy prime minister, Lord Prescott, Labour MP Chris Bryant, ex-Scotland Yard boss Brian Paddick and freelance journalist Brendan Montague claim the police deliberately misled them in 2006 over evidence their mobile phones had been hacked.

At a hearing at the high court on Monday, Mr Justice Foskett reversed an earlier refusal to let the claimants seek a judicial review into the police's conduct. He said Prescott, Bryant and Paddick "each has an arguable case" for believing the police breached their human rights.

Foskett added that although he was "not truly persuaded" that Montague had an "arguable claim", he would allow the journalist's application to proceed for "pragmatic reasons".

The court had heard claims that the Met told Prescott repeatedly that he was not a victim of hacking despite having evidence his voicemail had been intercepted 45 times by Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator who was at the time working for the News of the World.

Bryant claimed police told him there was no evidence his phone had been hacked despite knowing Mulcaire had kept notes on him, including a list of 23 numbers which made calls to his mobile phone – information which could have been obtained only by hacking his voicemail.

The police only told Paddick that Mulcaire had written his name, rank and address on one piece of paper when they knew the investigator had listed him on his computer as "a project" and collected phone details for him, his partner, his former partner and numerous associates.

At proceedings earlier this month, Hugh Tomlinson QC, who represents the four men, said their claims rested on the "lawfulness" of the Met's failure to tell the men they were victims of hacking despite being "aware of what was going on".

Tomlinson also claimed police failed to respond adequately to his clients' requests for information and failed to carry out an effective investigation.The Met has acknowledged that there were "some operational shortcomings" in their handling of the case. But it has claimed some victims were not told there was clear evidence of their messages being intercepted because that evidence was not available until very recently.

Foskett explained that he was reversing the earlier refusal to allow the claimants to pursue a judicial review because the fresh police investigation into the scandal, Operation Weeting, had produced significant new evidence to support their claims.

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