{"id":943790,"date":"2026-05-07T12:40:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T12:40:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/943790\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T12:40:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T12:40:15","slug":"man-arrested-for-selling-morgan-mcsweeneys-stolen-phone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/943790\/","title":{"rendered":"Man arrested for selling Morgan McSweeney’s stolen phone"},"content":{"rendered":"

The theft of McSweeney’s government phone came to light earlier this year, as the government was publishing documents about the appointment of Lord Mandelson as the UK’s ambassador to the US.<\/p>\n

McSweeney was an ally of Lord Mandelson and advised the prime minister to select him for the diplomatic role \u2013 something which he has since said was a mistake in light of the peer’s longstanding relationship with the convicted sex offender Jeffery Epstein.<\/p>\n

It is thought his phone could contain messages that provide further information on the process that led to the appointment.<\/p>\n

The phone was stolen in October, one month after Lord Mandelson was sacked, but several months before MPs voted to compel the government to publish the relevant messages.<\/p>\n

McSweeney reported the theft at the time but due to an error the location was incorrectly recorded as having happened in Belgrave Street in Tower Hamlets, east London, rather than in Belgrave Road in Westminster. <\/p>\n

The police said that McSweeney had not disclosed to the police a the time that he held a senior government role or the security implications of having his phone stolen. <\/p>\n

In March, the police – facing criticism that it had not properly investigated the theft – took the unusual step of publishing<\/a> the transcript of McSweeney’s 999 call.<\/p>\n

Following the discovery that officers had recorded the wrong address, the police said they were reassessing the evidence. <\/p>\n

Speaking to a parliamentary committee last month, McSweeney said he had told Downing Street about the theft immediately after it happened and had hoped they might be able to track the phone. <\/p>\n

Asked if his phone contained messages relating to Lord Mandelson’s appointment, McSweeney said: “Probably not much about his appointment that hasn’t already been available to No. 10.”<\/p>\n

He said that when Lord Mandelson was sacked, Downing Street had conducted research into the appointment and he had been asked to “share messages and emails about the appointment”.<\/p>\n

“Everything that I had at that time in September, which was more than a month before my phone was stolen, I shared it with the No 10 team.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The theft of McSweeney’s government phone came to light earlier this year, as the government was publishing documents…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":943791,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,12,14],"class_list":{"0":"post-943790","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116533344945759132","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=943790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943790\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/943791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=943790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=943790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=943790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}