Police launch investigation over claims newspapers ‘made £50,000 payments to two prison officers’

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Police launch investigation over claims newspapers ‘made £50,000 payments to two prison officers’

July 24th, 2012

FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda

By
Michael Seamark and Nick Mcdermott

PUBLISHED:

19:15 EST, 23 July 2012

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UPDATED:

19:15 EST, 23 July 2012

Police are investigating claims that two prison officers at high-security jails received tens of thousands of pounds in illegal payments from newspapers, the Leveson Inquiry heard yesterday.

One was allegedly paid almost £35,000 between April 2010 and June 2011 by three newspaper groups.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers, leading the Scotland Yard inquiry into phone hacking and corruption, said the investigation had widened beyond News International to include Fleet Street groups that own the Star and Mirror titles.

Evidence: Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers, pictured speaking at the Leveson Inquiry yesterday, said a police investigation into corrupt payments by journalists extended beyond Rupert Murdoch's British newspaper business to other publishers

Evidence: Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers, pictured speaking at the Leveson Inquiry yesterday, said a police investigation into corrupt payments by journalists extended beyond Rupert Murdoch’s British newspaper business to other publishers

She said another prison officer at a separate high-security establishment allegedly received payments from Trinity Mirror totalling more than £14,000.

Miss Akers said detectives were also investigating whether journalists had accessed information from stolen mobile phones before deciding whether two cases being checked were ‘isolated incidents or the tip of the iceberg’.

Giving an update to the inquiry, she said officers on the Operation Tuleta squad investigating more than 100 allegations of breaches of privacy, including computer hacking, were examining 70 storage devices holding 8-12 terabytes of data.

She told Lord Justice Leveson that if one terabyte of data was downloaded into a pile of paperbacks, it would be three-and-a-half times the height of Everest. The peak of the world’s highest mountain is 29,029ft (8,848m) above sea level.

Miss Akers said all 2,615 potential victims of phone hacking had been contacted, including 702 who police think are ‘likely to have been victims’.

She said 15 current or former journalists had been arrested under the Operation Weeting investigation into phone hacking, and 11 will answer bail today when they are set to be told whether they face criminal charges.

Justice Leveson will call Miss Akers back to the court in the autumn before producing his report

A total of 41 people have been arrested as part of the Operation Elveden investigation into corrupt payments, including 23 former or current journalists, four police officers, nine public officials and five people who acted as conduits for payment.

Referring to alleged payments to the prison officers, Miss Akers said detectives were investigating nearly £35,000 allegedly paid to the first – using his former partner as a conduit – by News International, Trinity Mirror and Express Newspapers.

The prison officer retired in June last year, but she said additional payments were made, with the last in February this year by Express Newspapers.

The second prison officer is alleged to have been paid £14,000 by Trinity Mirror between February 2006 and January this year.

Miss Akers said stories relating to payments to the two prison officers had been identified in the Daily and Sunday Mirror and the Daily Star and Daily Star Sunday.

She added: ‘It’s our assessment that there are reasonable grounds to suspect offences have been committed and that the majority of these stories reveal very limited material of genuine public interest.’

Detectives are also investigating whether News International had information obtained from stolen mobile phones.

Miss Akers said six people had been arrested under the Computer Misuse Act or on suspicion of handling stolen goods.

She said one mobile phone had been stolen in Manchester and another in south-west London, and that one had been ‘examined with a view to breaking the security code’.

Miss Akers will be called back to the inquiry in the autumn to give a final update on police investigations before Lord Justice Leveson produces his report.

After Miss Akers gave evidence, a Trinity Mirror spokesman said: ‘We take any accusation against the company very seriously and we are co-operating with the police on this matter. We remain engaged with the Leveson Inquiry.’

The inquiry also heard closing submissions from Neil Garnham, QC, for the Metropolitan Police Service, who acknowledged its decisions in July 2009 and September 2010 not to re-open the phone-hacking investigation ‘were taken too quickly and with a defensive and closed mindset’.

He said there was no inappropriate ‘cosiness’ or corrupt relationships between journalists and the police.