Benjamin Pell

Benjamin Pell (also known as "Benji the Binman", born December 1963) is a British man who is known for having raked through the dustbins of law firms representing prominent people in search of incriminating or compromising documents that he could sell to the press. Reportedly, Pell has now 'retired' from this activity and makes his living as a media law expert.

An adherent of Orthodox Judaism who was once a trainee lawyer, he (initially) failed his law exams at University College London in 1986 which he was expected to pass. He later gained a third-class degree, but could not gain employment with a law firm. Pell pretended to be following a legal career for eight months until his family discovered the truth.

Pell began his activities in uncovering discarded newsworthy documents, classified as theft, around 1997. The documents he found have been involved in several court cases and led to many newspaper stories, including ones involving Elton John, All Saints and the 'cash for questions' libel case between Mohamed Al-Fayed and Neil Hamilton. He said in 2002, "But I was never interested in the political stuff. I was a showbiz animal, and my showbiz stuff was top quality. [...] You'd get more money for a little nib about Hear'Say than you'd get for anything about Gordon Brown and David Blunkett." In the case of Elton John, Pell had hacked into the computers of organisations connected with the singer and looked through the rubbish of John Reid Enterpries, the company of his former manager.Piers Morgan at the Leveson Inquiry in 2011 admitted buying documents for stories from Pell while editor of the Daily Mirror, including Elton John's discarded bank statements, and said that such behaviour was on the "cusp of [the] unethical".

...
Wikipedia