Wow — the Rupert Murdoch phone hacking scandal just keeps getting more outrageous, as news emerges that this criminal enterprise actually tried to hack into the phone records of British prime minister Gordon Brown: News International papers targeted Gordon Brown.

Journalists from across News International repeatedly targeted the former prime minister Gordon Brown, attempting to access his voicemail and obtaining information from his bank account, his legal file as well as his family’s medical records.

There is also evidence that a private investigator used a serving police officer to trawl the police national computer for information about him.

That investigator also targeted another Labour MP who was the subject of hostile inquiries by the News of the World, but it has not confirmed whether News International was specifically involved in trawling police computers for information on Brown.