A police official said on Monday for the inquiry commission that the British tabloid The Sun had a “culture” to pay policemen, soldiers or officials in exchange for information. “There seems that there was a culture at The Sun on illegal payments. Several systems have been introduced to facilitate keeping secret the identity of the people that received payments”, said Sue Akers, Deputy Commissioner at Scotland Yard, for the Leveson commission that is investigating media practices.
Since November, police arrested ten journalists working or have worked for The Sun, owned by Australian media tycoon Rupert Murdoch. News of the World tabloid owned by Murdoch was closed in July after a scandal about illegal wiretaps. Investigators arrested also a policeman, an employee of the Ministry of Defense and an army officer.
Sue Akers argued that journalists had “a network of corrupt officials” who gave them information in exchange for large sums of money. “One of the arrested journalists received for several years, over 150,000 pounds to pay sources, and many of whom were government officials”, said Akers.
Police, which has been combing through millions of electronic messages of News International, Murdoch’s empire British division, also found that the authorization for these payments were given from a “high level” in The Sun. The Deputy Commissioner added that in most cases discovered by police, payments were made in exchange for “sensual gossip” as described by the Commissioner.
Rupert Murdoch, who decided to close the News of the World to end the scandal, launched a Sunday tabloid to The Sun, promising to respect journalistic ethics.
Leveson Commission was created in July 2011 by the Government after the telephone tapping scandal emerged. It is chaired by one of the leading judges in the UK. The Commission should present its findings in this case before September 2012.
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