A senior London police officer heading criminal investigations into allegations that public officials unlawfully accepted money from journalists today told the Leveson inquiry how inquiries suggested a "culture" of "illegal payments" at the Sun newspaper.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner (DAC) Sue Akers, who is leading the Metropolitan Police’s latest inquiries into allegations of phone hacking, email hacking and corrupt payments, said investigations pointed to payments being made to officials in “all areas of public life”.
She told the inquiry in Londont that payments did not amount to an “odd drink or meal” but “frequent” and “sometimes significant” amounts.
Evidence suggested that one public official was paid abuot £80,000 over a period of years and indicated that a journalist received more than £150,000 over several years to pay “sources”, said DAC Akers
Lord Justice Leveson was told that police were investigating “possible offences” of corruption, misconduct in public office and conspiracy.
DAC Akers said a number of Sun employees and police officers - plus a member of the Ministry of Defence and a member of the armed forces - had been arrested and she gave an update on the investigation.
“It (the investigation) suggests payments were being made to public officials in all areas of public life,” she said.
"There also appears to have been a culture at the Sun of illegal payments and systems created to facilitate those payments."
She suggested that journalists appeared to have been “well aware” that “what they were doing was unlawful”.
DAC Akers said payments did not appear to amount to the “odd drink or meal” but to: “regular, frequent and sometimes significant amounts of money to small numbers of public officials by journalists.”
She told the inquiry that there was evidence of “multiple payments amounting to thousands of pounds”.
PA