Phone hacking scandal deepens

[Magda Hassan]

Arrests, plural, imminent. 'High' profile NotW staff 'likely' to be arrested. Bet it is not Wade or Murdoch nor Coulson.

Corrupt Met police received more than £100,000 in unlawful payments from senior journalists and executives at the News of the World, the Evening Standard can reveal.
The bribes were made to officers in "sensitive" positions in return for confidential information. Sources say several "high-profile" NoW staff and the officers concerned are likely to be arrested within days and that "serious crimes" have been committed.
The new revelations about the scale of corruption inside Scotland Yard came amid other dramatic developments in the phone hacking controversy today. The Royal British Legion severed its links with the newspaper after claims that even war widows' phones have been hacked.
David Cameron faced calls to appoint a judge to head the public inquiry and start the investigation now.
The commercial backlash against NoW owner Rupert Murdoch also grew as Sainsbury's and npower became the latest companies to withdraw their advertising.
But the extent of corruption involving Scotland Yard and the paper is among the most damaging revelations so far. TheStandard has been told that unlawful payments to police have been made over several years. "They were very large sums, coming to more than six figures," said the source.
"They were running a criminal enterprise at the News of the World. Serious crimes have been found. The question now is about the scalps. There will be high-profile arrests at the paper."
The corrupt payments were discovered after News International began a trawl of internal emails earlier this year in a bid to discover the full extent of the paper's involvement in hacking.
All the emails are believed to relate to the period after Andy Coulson became editor in January 2003 and not to the preceding years when the current News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks ran the paper.
The firm is believed to have uncovered a significant number of emails indicating payments were made to police for tip-offs about criminal investigations and other confidential information.
The newspaper's accounts were also checked and it was confirmed that payments involving "large amounts" had been made. The officers who received the payments are understood to have been in jobs which gave them access to highly confidential information.
Although the emails and payments had no connection with the hacking inquiry, bosses passed the evidence to police. It was handed to Met Assistant Commissioner Cressida Dick at a Scotland Yard meeting last month.
Sources say the information caused deep shock at the Met as senior officers realised the severity of the scandal that would hit the force as the investigation proceeded and arrests were made.
"Colour drained from people's faces when they realised what had been happening," said one insider with knowledge of the investigation. "This is as bad for the Met as it is for the paper."
Pseudonyms were used to hide corrupt officers' identities, with payments authorised as going to "informants", although it is understood that police investigations have since identified at least some of the potential culprits.
The areas in which the corrupt officers worked are not known at this stage, but those with access to particularly sensitive information include police in the Met's royal and diplomatic protection squad and detectives in murder and organised crime investigations.
Today's developments follow an announcement by Met Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson of a new investigation into the corrupt payments. He said the probe, codename Operation Elveden, will be "thorough and robust" and added: "Anyone identified of wrongdoing can expect the full weight of disciplinary measures and, if appropriate, action in the criminal courts."
The Prime Minister yesterday announced a public inquiry into the Met's conduct would be held once criminal probes were over, as MPs accused the force of failing to act properly.
Former home secretary Alan Johnson today said the Met was guilty of "lethargy" in the hacking probe and had decided that with ex-NoW journalist Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire "banged up" it was not necessary to pursue the case.