Home Secretary Charles Clarke's aide 'was hacked by News of the World' By Vanessa Allen, Martin Robinson and Amanda Williams Charles Clarke told yesterday how he was confronted over a rumour that he was having an affair with his "blonde, attractive" special adviser. The former Labour home secretary told the hacking trial that Westminster gossip surrounding his relationship with Hannah Pawlby was "completely untrue" and that he had threatened to sue a newspaper if it published the claim. News of the World journalists began a surveillance operation after learning of the rumour and the tabloid's investigator Glenn Mulcaire eavesdropped on the Home Office special adviser's phone messages, the hacking trial heard. Mr Clarke, 63, and Miss Pawlby, 34, both denied any suggestion they were involved in a sexual relationship and no newspaper printed the claim. But the prosecution allege the rumour set a hacking operation into action at the News of the World. Features editor Jules Stenson sent editor Andy Coulson an email in May 2005 which said: "Lewis [Panther - a journalist] has had a tip that Home Secretary Charles Clarke is having an affair with his blonde, attractive special adviser Hannah Pawlby.. "He got this from a Westminster insider who fancied Pawlby, was going to ask her out and was told "Don't bother wasting your time, she's with Charles."" The newspaper's chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck watched Miss Pawlby's house for any sign of the Home Secretary while Mulcaire recorded messages from her mobile phone, the court heard. He was alleged to have gathered information about her parents, her grandparents and friends of the family, including one whose husband was the head of the intelligence agency MI6. Mr Clarke - who described the House of Commons as "a gossip mill" - told the Old Bailey he was unaware of the rumours until he was confronted by journalist Trevor Kavanagh, who was then political editor at The Sun. He said: "Trevor Kavanagh said he had evidence of such an affair and said he would try to get it sympathetically covered in The Sun if I confessed and gave him the story. I said that there was absolutely no basis for him to have any such evidence as such a relationship did not exist. As there was no substance to it at all, I wasn't prepared to discuss it with him and I said that we should just end the conversation, which we did. Miss Pawlby was also approached by another journalist from The Sun about the rumour and Mr Clarke said he decided to call the newspaper's editor Rebekah Brooks "to make it clear that such a story was completely untrue." She was away at the time and Mr Clarke said he spoke to her deputy and threatened to sue for libel if the story was published. Prosecutor Andrew Edis QC asked Mr Clarke, the Labour MP for Norwich South for 13 years until 2010: "Was there any truth in that rumour?" He replied: "Absolutely not. I wouldn't dream of doing so and the suggestion is completely untrue. The story was never published. There was no suggestion that Mr Kavanagh was involved in hacking or that The Sun had learned of the affair rumour through hacking. Under cross-examination from Alison Pople, for Coulson, Mr Clarke agreed he had met the News of the World editor but said Coulson had never mentioned the rumour to him. The jury was played a series of recordings of voice messages from Miss Pawlby's mobile phone, including two from Coulson in June 2005. In the messages the News of the World editor said he needed to speak to the then home secretary about a "serious story" the newspaper was intending to publish. Miss Pawlby said she never heard the messages because they were stored on her phone as "saved" as a result of being hacked. She was Mr Clarke's diary secretary when he was education secretary and became his special adviser when he moved to the Home Office in 2004, a promotion she said was "unusual." She told the court she had been aware of a rumour about a relationship circulating from 2004 until 2006, but added that there was no truth in it. The court also heard Mulcaire had hacked Lord Archer's acquaintances following his 2001 conviction for perjury. Mulcaire and Thurlbeck have both admitted being involved in phone hacking. Coulson and Brooks, both 45, deny conspiracy to hack phones.