Phone hacking: Andy Coulson 'helped spin story of George Osborne and dominatrix'

A lawyer for Natalie Rowe, the former boss of an escort agency, has suggested that Mr Coulson's treatment of the story may have been linked to his subsequent appointment as David Cameron's communications chief.

It emerged earlier this year that Mr Osborne had played a key role in recruiting Mr Coulson to work as the Tories’ media advisor after he resigned from the tabloid over phone hacking in 2007.

The appointment rehabilitated Mr Coulson’s career, and he went on to become the Downing Street communications chief after the Coalition came to power last year.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/phone-hacking/8757740/Phone-hacking-Andy-Coulson-helped-spin-story-of-George-Osborne-and-dominatrix.html


In case anyone has forgotten the story from 2005 this case involved allegations that George Osborne took cocaine as a 22 year old post graduate whilst attending a 'party' run by Ms Rowe in the 1990s. She ran an Escort Agency called Black Beauties and also supplied S&M services to her clients under the title Mistress Pain.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/phone-hacking/8757567/Phone-hacking-Natalie-Rowes-path-from-teenage-runaway-to-dominatrix-madam.html

At the time the story enjoyed some brief coverage in the press but then died a death as the drug taking claims were unproven and most people accepted that his dalliance with Ms Rowe was a 'youthful indiscretion'.It has now sprung back to life for two reasons. First it appears the neutering of the original press coverage may not be unconnected with Coulsons subsequent appointment as a the Number 10 Press Officer, particularly as Oborne is known to have been very active in lobbying the Prime Minister to give the former NOTW editor the job. Second, Camerons argument that 'Moral Decay' was responsible for the recent English riots has opened up the government to the charge that its members may not always have practised what it preaches (the very same chasm of hypocricy that devoured John Majors disastrous Victorian Values campaign). Banging up young student rioters for stealing bottles of water while laughing off claims that the current Chancellor took Class A drugs just before his appointment to Conservative Central Office (a crime that carries a maximum 7 year sentence) is obviously going to raise a few eyebrows.