Police investigating the bribing of public officials by journalists arrested the defence editor of Rupert Murdoch's British tabloid The Sun on Thursday, police and a media source said. The arrest of Virginia Wheeler, the 11th current or former Sun journalist held in the probe since November, came just days after a senior police officer described how the tabloid had a "culture" of paying police and other officials.
Murdoch, who shut down his News of the World tabloid in July after a scandal over phone-hacking, has insisted such practices are a thing of the past and proved his commitment to The Sun by launching a Sunday edition last weekend. "Detectives from Operation Elveden have today arrested a 32-year-old woman by appointment on suspicion of corruption under the Prevention of Corruption Act 1906 and aiding and abetting misconduct in a public office (contrary to common law) and conspiracy in relation to both offences," police said.
A source at News International, which publishes The Sun, confirmed to AFP that the woman was Wheeler, the tabloid's first female defence editor, who has been with the newspaper for seven years. The arrest, like those of the other Sun journalists before her, was sparked by information provided to police by an internal investigatory committee set up by Murdoch's News Corporation in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal.
The head of Scotland Yard's hacking and bribery investigation, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers, told a public inquiry into press standards on Monday that the Sun had a "network of corrupted officials" who provided stories.
"There appears to have been a culture at The Sun of illegal payments, and systems have been created to facilitate those payments whilst hiding the identity of the officials receiving the money," she said. In response, Murdoch conceded that such payments had existed but insisted: "The practices Sue Akers described at the Leveson inquiry are ones of the past, and no longer exist at The Sun."