Payment probe into jail officers

Two officers at high-security prisons allegedly took illegal payments from journalists, a senior police officer tells the Leveson Inquiry.

23 July 2012 Last updated at 11:31 GMT

Leveson Inquiry: Jail officers 'took illegal payments'

The Metropolitan Police's Sue Akers said one officer had allegedly received £35,000

The Leveson Inquiry

Two officers at high-security prisons allegedly took illegal payments from Mirror, Express and News International journalists, a senior police officer has told the Leveson Inquiry.

Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers said one officer had allegedly received £35,000.
But she said stories possibly linked to the payments revealed "very limited material of genuine public interest".
Trinity Mirror said it was co-operating with the police on the matter.
The fourth module of the inquiry, launched in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal, is focused on future press regulation.
DAC Akers is leading investigations into phone hacking, claims of corrupt payments to public officials, including police officers, and computer crime.
In her evidence, she said Scotland Yard had analysed stories possibly linked to payments to two senior prison officers at separate prisons.
She said: "It's our assessment that there are reasonable grounds to suspect offences have been committed and that the majority of these stories reveal very limited material of genuine public interest."
The inquiry heard that one prison officer was accused of taking illegal payments of nearly £35,000 from Trinity Mirror, News International and Express Newspapers during the period between April 2010 and June 2011.
Additional payments are also alleged to have been made, with a final payment in February 2012, she said.
The other official allegedly received payments totalling more than £14,000 from Trinity Mirror between February 2006 and January 2012.
Data intrusion Nick Fullagar, director of corporate communications for Trinity Mirror, said: "We take any accusation against the company very seriously and we are co-operating with the police on this matter.
"We remain engaged with the Leveson Inquiry."

“Start Quote

We frankly admit that there have been incidents which led to a plain perception of cosiness between particular senior MPS officers and particular journalists”

Neil Garnham QC Metropolitan Police Service (MPS)

DAC Akers said the Met had arrested 41 individuals as part of the Operation Elveden inquiry into corrupt payments to officials - including 23 former or current journalists, four police officers, nine current or former public officials and five people who allegedly acted as go-betweens.

Fifteen current and former journalists have been arrested so far by Operation Weeting officers - the Met's investigation into phone hacking - of whom 12 are on bail.
The inquiry heard that six people, including former Sun editor Rebekah Brooks and her husband Charlie, have been charged in relation to that investigation, and are expected to appear in court in September.
Ms Akers also said that files relating to three police officers and one journalist are currently with the Crown Prosecution Service.
Meanwhile, seven arrests have been made as part of Operation Tuleta - a third investigation looking at allegations that computers were hacked to obtain private information.
The inquiry heard that police were looking into 101 separate allegations of data intrusion, and examining eight to 11 terabytes of electronic data.
Ms Akers also suggested that certain information obtained by News International seemed to have come from stolen mobile phones - one taken in London and another in Manchester.
She said police officers were investigating whether this was "the tip of the iceberg" in terms of alleged accessing of stolen mobile phones.
Ms Akers told the inquiry she was happy to return to give further evidence in September.
During evidence to the Leveson Inquiry in February, DAC Akers, who is due to retire from the Met in May, had outlined details of payments of tens of thousands of pounds made by journalists to public officials.
'Defensive and closed' Later, in closing submissions, Neil Garnham, QC for the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), told the inquiry that no inappropriate relationships existed between police and journalists.
"We frankly admit that there have been incidents which led to a plain perception of cosiness between particular senior MPS officers and particular journalists," he said.
"There was no relationship between senior officers and journalists that was in fact corrupt. There was no cosiness or inappropriately close relationship that in fact tainted police decision-making."
He said the Met's decisions not to reopen the phone-hacking investigation in 2009 and 2010 "were taken too quickly and with a defensive and closed mindset".
But he added that relationships between senior officers and News International had had no impact on the decisions. copy : http://www.bbc.co.uk

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