Operation Elveden: three more arrested over alleged illegal payments

Operation Elveden: three more arrested over alleged illegal payments


Police arrest two men, including a former prison officer, and a woman on Thursday morning

Jason Deans

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 14 June 2012 10.07 BST



Scotland Yard detectives investigating alleged illegal payments by journalists to police and other public officials have made three further arrests. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA

Scotland Yard detectives investigating alleged illegal payments by journalists to police and other public officials have made three further arrests, including a Sun journalist and a former prison officer.

Officers from Operation Elveden, the Metropolitan police investigation into the alleged illegal payments, arrested two men and a woman at about 6am on Thursday morning in Corby and Croydon. This takes the total number of arrests by Operation Elveden to 33.

News International confirmed that one of the individuals arrested on Thursday was a Sun journalist. They are the 13th current and former journalist from the paper to be arrested under Operation Elveden.

The former prison officer, a 40-year-old-man, was arrested at his home in Corby, Northamptonshire, on suspicion of corruption, misconduct in a public office and money laundering.

A 37-year-old woman was also arrested at home in Corby, on suspicion of aiding and abetting misconduct in a public office and money laundering. Both are being questioned at a police station in Northamptonshire.

The third arrest on Thursday was of a 31-year-old man at his home in Croydon on suspicion of conspiracy to corrupt and conspiracy to cause misconduct in a public office.

"Officers investigating allegations of inappropriate payments to police and public officials have arrested two men and one woman this morning at three separate addresses," Scotland Yard said in a statement.

"The arrests were made at approximately 0600 hours by officers from Operation Elveden which is being supervised by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) and is being run in conjunction with Operation Weeting, the MPS inquiry into the phone-hacking of voicemail boxes.

"Today's arrests are the result of information provided to police by News Corporation's Management Standards Committee. They relate to suspected payments to a public official and are not about seeking journalists to reveal confidential sources in relation to information that has been obtained legitimately."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jun/14/operation-elveden-three-arrested