Police arrested four current and former staff of Rupert
Murdoch’s best-selling Sun tabloid plus a policeman on Saturday as part of an
investigation into suspected payments by journalists to officers, police and the
newspaper’s publisher said.
Police also searched the paper’s London offices at publisher
News International, News Corp’s British arm, in a corruption probe linked to a
continuing investigation into phone hacking at its now closed News of the World
weekly tabloid.
News Corp’s Management and Standards Committee, set up in
the wake of the phone hacking scandal, said Saturday’s operation was the result
of information it had passed to police.
“News Corporation made a commitment last summer that
unacceptable news gathering practices by individuals in the past would not be
repeated,” the committee said in a statement confirming the arrests of
four “current and former employees” of the Sun.
The committee is conducting a lawyer-led internal review of
News International’s remaining titles, which also include The Times and The
Sunday Times newspapers, as part of a drive to mend the reputational damage done
by the phone hacking scandal.
The committee’s investigation into The Sun was “well
advanced,” News International chief executive Tom Mockridge said in an
email sent to staff.
“News International is confronting past mistakes and is
making fundamental changes about how we operate which are essential for our
business.
“Despite this very difficult news, we are determined
that News International will emerge a stronger and more trusted
organisation,” he added.
News International was providing legal support for the four
arrested “colleagues,” Mockridge said.
The arrests included The Sun’s crime editor Mike Sullivan,
its head of news Chris Pharo, and former deputy editor Fergus Shanahan, a
source familiar with the situation told Reuters.
Also arrested was the paper’s former managing editor Graham
Dudman, now a training director at News International, the source said.
Police said a 48-year-old man from north London and two
other men from Essex, east of London, aged 48 and 56, were arrested at their
homes. The fourth man, aged 42, was arrested after reporting to an east London
police station.
A Sun reporter, who asked not to be named, said:
“Everyone is a bit shocked, there is disbelief really. But there is a big
difference between phone hacking and payments to the police.”
A 29-year-old policeman serving with the Met Police’s
Territorial Policing Command, was arrested at the central London police station
where he worked.
All five were being questioned on suspicion of corruption.
Police searched the arrested men’s homes as well as The
Sun’s offices in Wapping, east London.
Thirteen people have now been arrested over allegations that
journalists paid police in return for information.
Their detentions are part of Operation Elveden – one of
three criminal investigations into news-gathering practices.
Last week, News International settled a string of legal
claims after it admitted that people working for the tabloid had hacked in to
the private phones of celebrities and others to find stories.
The phone hacking scandal drew attention to the level of
political influence held by editors and executives at News International, and
other newspapers in Britain.
It embarrassed British politicians for their close ties with
newspaper executives and also the police, who repeatedly failed to investigate
allegations of illegal phone hacking.
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