A journalist from The Sun and a former police officer will face criminal charges over alleged corrupt payments for information, prosecutors said Tuesday.
The Sun’s defence editor Virginia Wheeler and Paul Flattley, a former constable in London’s Metropolitan Police, will be charged with conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said.
It is alleged that the police officer was paid more than £6,450 ($10,250, 7,650 euros) for information by The Sun, including details about the death of a 15-year-old girl.
The charges bring to eight the number of people charged over Operation Elveden, Scotland Yard’s investigation into alleged payments made to public officials by journalists, which is linked to the phone-hacking scandal.
Alison Levitt, the principal legal advisor to the Director of Public Prosecutions at the CPS, said: “The information provided included information about the tragic death of a 15-year-old girl, as well as details about both suspects and victims of accidents, incidents and crimes.
“This included, but was not limited to, information about high-profile individuals and those associated with them.”
The first person to be prosecuted as part of the investigation, a counter-terrorism detective, was found guilty this month of trying to sell information about a phone hacking investigation to a newspaper.
A jury convicted Detective Chief Inspector April Casburn of offering the now-defunct News of the World information about a probe into whether Scotland Yard’s inquiry into the illegal hacking of mobile phones should be reopened.
She will be sentenced on February 1.
Police have arrested a total of 56 journalists and public officials under Operation Elveden, one of three probes set up after the hacking scandal forced Rupert Murdoch to shut down the News of the World in July 2011.
Sun reporter, ex-police officer charged over payments
