Scotland Yard officers in bribe scandal
(The Evening Standard): Corrupt Met police received more than £100,000 in unlawful payments from senior journalists and executives at the News of the World, the Evening Standard can reveal. The bribes were made to officers in "sensitive" positions in return for confidential information. Sources say several "high-profile" NoW staff and the officers concerned are likely to be arrested within days and that "serious crimes" have been committed. The new revelations about the scale of corruption inside Scotland Yard came amid other dramatic developments in the phone hacking controversy today. The Royal British Legion severed its links with the newspaper after claims that even war widows' phones have been hacked.
Category: World News
Surprise, surprise!
I posted a comment several months ago pointing out that the problem with this whole phone tapping enquiry was the close relationship that existed between the Met and the certain areas of the media. The news that John Yates had been dining out with News Int. while he was head of an investigation was just one recent example.
In fact the two people who heading up Operation Tempura have an impressive track record of using UK media contacts to boost their public profile although there is no suggestion that either did this for financial reasons.
Watch this story developing. News Int. have released a list showing dates and amounts. They only relate to 2003 so it's not rocket science to link these in with published stories and then back to the officers involved, many of whom may now have retired.
However, you have to bear in mind that this goes beyond the kickbacks. The payments are easy to investigate because they were almost certainly made to cover release of specific information, which the media could not get through normal channels, and they leave an audit trail.
What is going to much more complicated to sort out are the numerous instances where confidential material was leaked for other, mostly personal, reasons. The problem the Met may have is that lifting the lid on this can of worms is only the start of what many regard as a long-overdue shake up in the way their officers deal with the media.