Journalists at Britain's best-selling tabloid The Sun had a "network of corrupted officials" who provided them with stories in return for large cash payments, a top police officer said today.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers of Scotland Yard told an official inquiry there was a "culture" at the Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper of paying police as well as the military, health workers, government and prison staff.
Since November, detectives investigating the payments have arrested ten current or former journalists from The Sun, as well as a serving police officer, a Ministry of Defence worker and an army officer.
"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," Akers said.
She said a trawl of millions of emails from News International, the publisher of The Sun and the now closed News of the World, indicated that some public officials were paid huge amounts and even kept on retainer.
"The authority level for these type of payments was made at a very senior level" at The Sun, she...
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