A Trinity Mirror Plc executive was arrested by U.K. police in connection with phone hacking as the almost decade-long scandal continues to engulf the publisher.
London police said they arrested a man in connection with a probe into hacking at Mirror Group Newspapers. Lee Harpin, listed on his LinkedIn page as the Mirror’s agenda editor, was being questioned, said Harry Carter, a spokesman for the company.
Trinity Mirror was ordered to pay 1.2 million pounds ($1.9 million) to eight celebrities in May after a London judge said there was “substantial” phone hacking at the company’s newspapers. The scandal was reignited four years ago by the discovery that journalists at the News of the World newspaper, owned by News Corp., hacked into the phone of a murdered school girl.
The Metropolitan Police said a man was arrested in connection with Operation Golding, the investigation into phone hacking at the Mirror. It is the fifth arrest of the operation.
Sky News television reported the arrest earlier on Wednesday, without saying how it got the information.
News Corp.’s U.K. publishing unit was battered in 2011 by allegations of wrongdoing, which sparked criminal and judicial probes into the press. News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch closed the News of the World, then the country’s largest newspaper, in a bid to contain the scandal.
[SOURCE- “bloomberg.com”]
