APPALLED relatives of Dorset soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan have greeted news they could be the latest victims’ of News of the World phone hacking with disgust.

The Ministry of Defence is now seeking clarification from Scotland Yard amid revelations that police detectives investigating the scandal were contacting the families of dead servicemen.

As the latest twist in the phone hacking outrage emerged the bereaved relatives of Dorset soldiers killed in action called the claims “despicable,” and accused the troubled paper of displaying a total lack of respect.

Peter Thornton, the father of 22-year-old Lieutenant John Thornton, who was killed in Afghanistan in 2008, said he has no reason to believe his telephone was tapped, but added that anyone capable of such an intrusion into the grief of the bereaved was contemptible. “I think anyone who can do that sort of thing for news is the lowest form of life you can get,” the father of the Royal Marine, who lives in Ferndown, said.

“When you lose someone it’s indescribable and deeply personal to the family. Intruding on that grief like that is disgusting.

“I don’t think it happened to us, I certainly have had no indication, but I don’t know how I’d react. A mixture of rage and anger I think. It’s not the sort of thing you expect human beings to do.”

Mr Thornton explained that when his son was killed he felt it was important to talk journalists about what he and his family were going through to help raise the profile of the war and remind the public that there are British soldiers fighting and dying in Afghanistan.

“The families who have lost loved ones in Afghanistan and Iraq deserve to be treated with respect,” he said. “You’ll find that probably 75 per cent of bereaved parents will talk to the press if the coverage is done sensitively and put nicely.

“But to hack someone’s telephone just to get a story, well that’s despicable.”

Sue Thwaites, from Burton, near Christchurch, mother of Royal Marine Neil Dunstan who was killed in Afghanistan in 2008, said: “I think it’s terrible that this was done when people are at their most vulnerable.

“I can’t believe that people could be that low to listen into the telephone calls or messages of people who have just lost a child. They should be made accountable for how they have behaved.”

Yesterday it emerged that the personal details of the families of servicemen who died on the front line were found in the files of Glenn Mulcaire, the private detective working for the Sunday tabloid, who was jailed in 2007 for phone hacking members of the royal family.

The revelations come after PM David Cameron said he would set up a public inquiry into alleged phone hacking. Bournemouth MP Tobias Ellwood, said: “The allegations about phone hacking are incredibly serious. The whole country is deeply shocked. “Given the gravity of the allegations now being made, it is clear that there should be an inquiry, or inquiries, into these matters, which will need to be independent and held in public.

“There are two principal issues.

“First, the original police investigation, and whether that went far enough.

“Second, the practices and behaviour of some individuals and media organisations, and indeed the whole ethics of the press in this country, which clearly may lead to new conclusions being drawn about how they are regulated.”

The Royal British Legion said it was ‘shocked to the core’ by the claims and has dropped the paper as its campaigning partner.

News International, whose publications include the News of the World, said it would be “absolutely appalled and horrified” if there was any truth in the allegations relating to families of dead soldiers and would immediately be contacting the Ministry of Defence.

A spokesman for the company said: “News International’s record as a friend of the armed services and of our servicemen and servicewomen, is impeccable. Our titles have campaigned in support of the military over many years.”