Starmer dumps doormat?

[Caspar Bowden (travelling private e-mail)]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/09/13/ripa_email_advice/ 
Yates said the following (at Q5):  Hacking is defined in a very prescriptive
way by the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and it's very, very
prescriptive and it's very difficult to prove.... There are very few
offences that we are able to actually prove that have been hacked. That is,
intercepting the voicemail prior to the owner of that voicemail intercepting
it him or herself.

The supposition is that Yates was thinking of
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/2000/jun/12/regulation-of-investiga
tory-powers-bill <<<1438 Bassam: ...The definition of "interception" is
limited to interception of a communication in the course of its transmission
by certain means. To take one example, a letter which has been delivered
through a letterbox and is lying on a doormat is no longer in the course of
its transmission-it has, after all, arrived>>>

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/sep/07/phone-hacking-voicemails-law-int
erception 
Addressing the home affairs select committee today John Yates, the assistant
Metropolitan police commissioner, repeated earlier claims by police that
cases of hacking into voicemails could only be prosecuted if the victim had
not yet listened to their messages. "That is nonsense, and a recurring
problem with this police position in this case," said Simon McKay, author of
Covert Policing Law & Practice. "The police are getting confused about a
number of things relating to the evidential status of a voicemail....

-----Original Message-----
From: Wendy M. Grossman [mailto:wendyg at pelicancrossing.net] 
Sent: 15 January 2011 15:52
To: cb at qualia.co.uk; UK Cryptography Policy Discussion Group
Cc: Caspar Bowden (travelling private e-mail)
Subject: Re: Starmer dumps doormat?

Why should whether you've heard the messages or not make any difference?
wg

On 1/15/2011 10:17, Caspar Bowden (travelling private e-mail) wrote:
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jan/14/dpp-news-of-the-world-phon
> e-hacking
>
>
> The CPS had been of the view that an offence of phone hacking would 
> require it to be proved that someone had hacked a phone and listened 
> to a message before the owner of the phone had a chance to hear it. 
> Now the CPS believes an offence may have been committed if a phone was 
> hacked and a message listened to by a journalist or private 
> investigator at any time, even if the owner had already heard it
>