by Brian CathcartMore than a year ago the rumour first circulated that among those hacked by the News of the World were victims of the disastrous Northwick Park Hospital drug trial. The latest list of people suing News International over hacking suggests that the rumour may have been accurate.Friday’s Guardian reported: "The list of new claimants also features Michelle Bayford, the former girlfriend of the victim of the 2006 so-called 'elephant man' drug trial case. Her then boyfriend, Ryan Wilson, spent three weeks in a coma and lost all his toes and parts of his fingers to gangrene."Now, if the girlfriend’s phone was hacked, who might have left voicemail messages for her? Ryan Wilson perhaps. Or distressed friends of the couple who had visited him in hospital. Or, conceivably, hospital staff passing on confidential medical information. Imagine wanting to eavesdrop on those.And how likely is it that if Bayford was a News of the World target, she was the only one among those connected to the trials? In many other cases clusters of numbers were hacked, no doubt giving reporters a fuller picture.The scandal itself would be hard to forget. In March 2006 at Northwick Park Hospital in northwest London six trial volunteers were injected with an experimental leukaemia drug as part of a clinical trial conducted by a firm called Parexel.All suffered multiple organ failure and required emergency treatment to save their lives, and Wilson, then a trainee plumber aged 20, was the worst affected. It was the girlfriend of another victim who famously said the six were left looking like the Elephant Man. (Read a vivid account of the case here)Parexel was subsequently criticised for its handling of the trial but if Ms Bayford’s claim is correct it seems that the News of the World was more interested in investigating the victims than those in charge. (So much for the idea that the paper bravely challenged authority.)A News of the World report on the affair from April 2006 can still be read online. It is an account of an interview with Wilson and it contains the striking sentence: "Ryan's girlfriend Michelle Bayford, 20, is too upset to talk about the tragedy."This was more than a month after the trial. Now she is suing we will find out what sort of respect the News of the World showed to her in her distress.Brian Cathcart teaches journalism at Kingston University London and is a founder of Hacked Off. He tweets at @BrianCathcart