John Yates to sue the Evening Standard

The mainstream media's blogs about the phone hacking scandal are reporting that former Assistant Commissioner John Yates is to sue the Evening Standard.

See, for example, the following in the Guardian, Phone-hacking scandal: live coverage:

3.09pm: Paul Owen writes: Former assistant commissioner John Yates is suing the London Evening Standard for libel "over aspects of its reporting of his conduct in the News of the World phone-hacking investigation", his solicitors, Carter-Ruck, have just announced.

The solicitors say the claim relates to allegations made in articles published on 7 July 2011.

Luke Staiano of Carter-Ruck, Yates's solicitor, said:

The Evening Standard published highly defamatory allegations concerning Assistant Commissioner Yates which go to the heart of his integrity as a police officer. The allegations are completely false and without foundation. The newspaper made no effort to contact Mr Yates to verify the accuracy of the allegations and even wrongly claimed in the article that Mr Yates had not responded to calls. The Evening Standard has refused to apologise or withdraw the allegations, leaving Mr Yates with no alternative but to bring legal proceedings.

I find this development to be a very interesting one.