LONDON

A senior British politician who was outed by The Sun as bisexual ? a revelation that might have scuppered his prospects of leading the Liberal Democrats ? last night told the Leveson inquiry that he had experienced many problems with his voicemails that he did not realise at the time were due to phone hacking.A senior British politician who was outed by The Sun as bisexual – a revelation that might have scuppered his prospects of leading the Liberal Democrats – last night told the Leveson inquiry that he had experienced many problems with his voicemails that he did not realise at the time were due to phone hacking.

Simon Hughes, MP, was standing as the front-running candidate for the leadership of the Liberal Democrats in 2006 when he received a phone call from a journalist at The Sun who said he wanted to speak to him about a private matter.

They met, “and he then shared with me the fact that The Sun had come across information which was records of telephone calls made by me”. Mr Hughes said he “admitted straightforwardly” the matter relating to the calls.

The Sun later ran a news story headlined, ‘Hughes: I’ve had gay sex’, and quoting him as saying, “It was wrong to keep denying it.” The story said, “In an exclusive admission to The Sun, he apologized for twice denying he is homosexual.”

Mr Hughes told the inquiry the story did not entirely reflect what he said in the interview.

At the time Mr Hughes was the front-runner in the contest for leadership of the party (which was won by Nick Clegg, who later entered the current coalition with the Conservative Party, prompting one political commentator to question whether The Sun’s story had changed the course of British politics).

Mr Hughes said media then aggressively pursued “on a fallacious assumption” two of his friends, one male and one female, with whom he had shared phone calls. “They were trying to establish a relationship between me and these people, neither of which were what they wanted them to be.”

Police later told him his phone had been hacked but gave him little information about how much they had uncovered, he told the inquiry.

Mr Hughes said he was surprised and disappointed that only two people were taken to court following the initial investigation, and said there was a “complete failure” to investigate whether other people should have been charged.

“It struck me as fairly obvious once everything was revealed, if you had seen the names of the other journalists from the same paper you would at least have asked some questions and got them in for questioning and investigate what their role was.”

He said if police had acted strongly in 2006, “a lot of the illegal action might have been shut down and a lot of the people who are now known to be victims might not be victims or might not have suffered as much”.

Mr Hughes settled his phone-hacking claim with News International earlier this month for £45,000.

First published on theage.com.au.