A source close to the case said: “This will open up a new front in the scandal. Currently, the contagion has been isolated in Britain but if it spreads to the US it could threaten the American parent company.”
Ms Stark is an eccentric figure who became a favourite of the tabloids after she began an 18-month relationship with Prince Andrew following his return from the Falklands war in 1982. However, the romance ended soon after it emerged that Ms Stark had previously appeared in an erotic film called Emily.
The Duke of York went on to marry Sarah Ferguson but the pair remained friends and she was invited to his 50th birthday party at St James’s Palace in 2010. Ms Stark divided her time between London and the US, but the actress-turned-photographer fell on hard times after a bitter divorce.
Scotland Yard contacted her recently to say she appeared in the notebooks of Glenn Mulcaire, who was jailed for phone-hacking in 2007 with Clive Goodman.
The Met is contacting up to 4,000 celebrities, footballers and politicians who appear in 11,000 pages, hard drives and other equipment seized from the private investigator when he was first arrested in 2006.
Ailsa Anderson, who is in charge of PR at the Palace, said: “I have been contacted by Weeting. I am 99 per cent certain I have not been hacked and I am not surprised at all that my name and details appeared in the contacts book of a journalist.”
Mr Lewis refused to discuss Ms Stark’s case. The Murdoch empire is facing two investigations in the US. The FBI is examining claims by actor Jude Law that his phone was hacked while he was at JFK airport in New York.
The US Department of Justice is also examining claims that News International’s journalists in Britain paid police for stories. Corrupt payments to overseas public officials by US companies are prohibited by the Foreign & Corrupt Practices Act. NI declined to comment.
