POLICE INVESTIGATING allegations of phone hacking against British tabloids have arrested a 41-year-old man on suspicion of conspiring to intercept voicemail messages and pervert the course of justice.
The Metropolitan Police have not identified the man, but said this morning that he is being held at a south London police station.
Over a dozen people have been arrested for questioning over the alleged hacking, including former News of the World journalists and editors. Two of London’s top police officers and senior executives of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire have resigned over the controversy.
Former NoTW editor Andy Coulson resigned from his position as the British prime minister’s media adviser after he became involved in the investigation.
The phone hacking controversy forced the closure of the News of the World newspaper earlier this year and led to the Leveson inquiry into media ethics. Over a dozen people have given evidence at the Leveson hearings over the past two weeks on how media coverage of their lives affected them.
Actress Sienna Miller told the inquiry that she and her family became increasingly paranoid about the sources of details published in tabloids which were later discovered to have been sourced through phone hacking. A former financial advisor to supermodel Elle Macpherson said she lost her job after the model suspected she was the source of stories appearing in the press, which were also sourced through hacking.
- Additional reporting by the AP
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