A 52-year-old Scotland Yard policewoman was arrested early today (Wednesday) on charges of receiving illegal payments from British journalists. The woman, whose name was not released, reportedly works for the "specialist operations division," a highly critical unit that is responsible for such matters as national security and the protection of the royal family. Her arrest came days after officers arrested former News of the World crime editor Lucy Panton and questioned her about alleged payments to police officers. Panton is married to a Scotland Yard detective. Meanwhile, former Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan was questioned by a parliamentary committee looking into journalistic ethics. Testifying via a satellite connection from Los Angeles, where he hosts his nightly interview show on CNN, repeatedly denied that he was aware of telephone hacking being undertaken by Mirror reporters when he ran the paper. His testimony was contradicted today, however, by former business journalist James Hipwell, who asserted, "Nothing happened at the newspaper without him knowing." Telephone hacking, he maintained, had become a "bog-standard [ordinary] journalist tool" at the newspaper.

21/12/2011