A CLEVEDON computing company has been helping police investigating the phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World.

According to a national newspaper, staff at Essential Computing in Hill Road are understood to have been interviewed by officers working on Operation Weeting, set up to look into allegations of widespread phone-hacking at the tabloid that published its final edition on Sunday.

Over the weekend, the Guardian reported that an executive at News International, the owner of the News of the World, allegedly attempted to delete large sections from the company’s email archive on two occasions before investigators were able to access them.

The Guardian says that Essential Computing in Hill Road has provided evidence to police about an alleged attempt by the executive to destroy part of the archive while its staff were working with it.

According to the report, the archive is believed to reach back as far as 2005 and contains emails between News of the World editors, reporters and outsiders, including private investigators.

When contacted this morning (Mon), a staff member at Essential Computing said they were not allowed to comment on the issue.