Wiltshire police officer and journalists arrested in corruption probe (From Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard)

Wiltshire police officer and journalists arrested in corruption probe

11:30am Wednesday 19th September 2012 in News

A WILTSHIRE police officer and two journalists were arrested in the early hours of this morning in a probe into inappropriate payments to police and public officials.

The 39-year-old serving police officer, was arrested at his Wiltshire home at around 6am this morning under suspicion of misconduct and conspiracy to cause misconduct.

A 51-year-old journalist from Bristol was arrested under suspicion of misconduct and conspiracy to cause misconduct . This is understood to be the Sun's West Country correspondent, John Coles.

The second journalist, a 32-year-old from London, was also arrested this morning by officers working on Operation Elveden, under suspicion of misconduct and conspiracy to cause misconduct.

The arrests were made after information was handed over to police by a News Corporation committee, established to take responsibility for phone hacking matters at the News of the World, payments to the police and other related issues at News International.

A total of 50 arrests have now been made as part of the Metropolitan Police Service's Operation Elveden, which is running in conjunction with Operation Weeting, the MPS inquiry into the phone-hacking of voicemail boxes

A Wiltshire police spokesman said: "Today's arrests are the result of information provided to police by News Corporation's Management Standards Committee.

"They relate to suspected payments to a public official and suspected disclosure of confidential information by a police officer and are not about seeking journalists to reveal confidential sources in relation to information that has been obtained legitimately."