Phone hacking scandal deepens

[Jan Klimkowski]

Rupert Murdoch is in England today.

Partway through Hackgate, he closed his Sunday tabloid, the News of the World, attempting to ringfence the damage and pretend the criminal culture was limited to one newspaper. He desperately wanted to protect his daily tabloid, The Sun, and even launched a Sunday Sun.

Murdoch's strategy has failed pathetically.

Inevitably.

Yet the Murdoch Crime Family is still lauded by politicians and the powerful.....

Sun's defence editor charged under Operation Elveden

Virginia Wheeler charged with conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office, crown prosecution service announces


Lisa O'Carroll
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 22 January 2013 17.17 GMT


The Sun: Wheeler was paper's first female defence editor and reported from the front line in Libya in 2011

The Sun's defence editor, Virginia Wheeler, has been charged with conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office, the crown prosecution service has announced.

A former Metropolitan police officer, Paul Flattley, has also been charged with the same offence, the CPS confirmed on Tuesday morning.

Arrested last March, the 33-year-old Wheeler was the 23rd person to be detained by Scotland Yard as part of Operation Elveden.

She is the Sun's first female defence editor and reported from the front line in Libya in 2011.

Before her promotion to defence editor she had been a Sun reporter and foreign correspondent covering events from Zimbabwe, Mexico, Pakistan and Afghanistan and Haiti. Wheeler is on extended leave from the Sun.

It is alleged that between 25 May 2008 and 13 September 2011, Flattley, who at the time was a serving officer with the Met, was paid at least £4,000 in the form of cheques and £2,450 in cash by the Sun in exchange for information provided in breach of the terms of his employment.

The information provided included material about the death of a 15-year-old, as well as details about both suspects and victims of accidents, incidents and crimes. This included, but was not limited to information about high-profile individuals, the CPS said.

Alison Levitt, QC and principal legal advisor to the director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer, said the decisions to charge Wheeler and Flattley were made following the receipt of a file from Scotland Yard on 17 December 2012.

"All of these matters were considered carefully in accordance with the DPP's guidelines on the public interest in cases affecting the media," Levitt said in a statement.

"This guidance asks prosecutors to consider whether the public interest served by the conduct in question outweighs the overall criminality before bringing criminal proceedings."

Wheeler and Flattley are charged with offences contrary to the Criminal Law Act 1977. She has been summonsed to appear before Wesminster magistrates court on 11 February with Flattley due to appear in the same court at a date yet to be determined.

The charges were announced on a day when Rupert Murdoch was in London visiting senior executives on his newspapers.

The alleged offences took place during a period spanning the editorships of both Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of News International, and Dominic Mohan, who was appointed editor in September 2009 following Brooks's promotion.

Today's announcement brings the number of people charged under Operation Elveden, the Met's inquiry into inappropriate payments to police and other public officials, to eight.

Earlier this month a senior Scotland Yard detective DCI April Casburn was found guilty of trying to sell information on the phone-hacking investigation being conducted by her colleagues to the News of the World, the tabloid at the centre of the scandal.

In November David Cameron's former spin doctor and former editor of the News of the World, Andy Coulson, and Clive Goodman, the former News of the World royal correspondent were charged in relation to the alleged receipt of information including a royal phone directory known as the "Green book".

Coulson denied the misconduct allegations in relation to payments to officials and said he was "extremely disappointed by this latest CPS decision", vowing to "fight the charges in court".

Brooks and the Sun's chief reporter, John Kay, were also charged on the same day in relation to a conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office between 1 January 2004 and 31 January 2012.

An employee of the ministry of defence, Bettina Jordan Barber, was also charged in relation to information allegedly provided to the Sun for a series of stories and for payment of approximately £100,000 over a seven-year period between 2004 and 2011.

Misconduct in public office is a common law offence which carries a maximum life sentence. In practice this is rare and 18 months is more likely to be a reference point in court.