Morrisons to be sued by 2,000 staff

More than 2,000 staff at Morrisons are to sue the supermarket chain after some of their personal and financial details were posted online.

The leak happened when a company auditor uploaded details of almost 100,000 staff to various file-sharing websites in 2013.

The auditor, Andrew Skelton, was sentenced to eight years in jail for deliberately leaking the details.

Now staff are arguing Morrisons should have done more to protect their data.

"My clients' position is that Morrisons failed to prevent a data leak which exposed tens of thousands of its employees to the very real risk of identity theft and potential loss," said Nick McAleenan, a data privacy lawyer representing the staff.

"In particular, they are worried about the possibility of money being taken from their bank accounts and - in the case of younger clients - negative consequences for their credit rating."

The size of the claim has yet to be decided.

Morrisons denies it is responsible and says the legal action is fundamentally misconceived.