Senior executives at the Sun were accused yesterday of spinning a web of corruption across public life in Britain, channelling hundreds of thousands of pounds towards a network of crooked police and officials.
In a day of sensational evidence at the Leveson Inquiry into press standards, the officer leading Scotland Yard's investigations into the "dark arts" of Rupert Murdoch's newspapers revealed that a "culture of illegal payments" had taken grip of Britain's best-selling newspaper - where bribery was "openly" discussed and journalists were well aware that they were breaking the law.
"Multiple payments" were made to public officials in the government, police, military, prisons and health service, the Metropolitan Police's Deputy Assistant Commissioner, Sue Akers, said.
One public official was paid around £80,000 ($150,000) over a period of years and a Sun journalist received more than £150,000 to pay "sources", Akers said, adding that the bribery was not unearthing stories in the public interest but "salacious gossip".
In the past month, nine senior journalists on the Sun have been arrested by the anti-corruption inquiry Operation Elveden, as the police step up their criminal investigations into apparently rampant law-breaking at News International's headquarters in Wapping, east London.
Giving evidence at the start of the Leveson Inquiry's exploration of the relationship between the police and the press, Akers told Lord Justice Leveson: "The current assessment of the evidence is that it reveals a network of corrupted officials. There appears to have been a culture at the Sun of illegal payments and systems created to facilitate those payments."
The inquiry confirmed that News International's (NI) former chief executive Rebekah Brooks, a favourite of Murdoch, received inside information from a senior policeman about the original phone-hacking inquiry at the News of the World six years ago.
Fresh evidence emerged that Scotland Yard - which has been criticised for its previously cosy relationship with NI - knew that a large number of people had been hacked by the Sunday paper before senior officers insisted there had only been a handful of proven victims.
Up to 250 individuals have demanded - or will shortly demand - compensation from News International for invasion of privacy in another slew of embarrassing cases.
A total of 169 police officers and staff are manning Scotland Yard's investigations into phone hacking, computer hacking and corruption.
Having launched the Sunday edition of the Sun at the weekend, Murdoch sought yesterday to distance the daily newspaper from the bribery. "The practices Sue Akers described at the Leveson Inquiry are ones of the past, and no longer exist at the Sun," he said.
- Independent