Corruption
11 July 2012. In the first confirmed cases of alleged corruption outside Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, two British journalists were arrested for bribing public officials for getting leads to news stories. Media group Trinity Mirror said it was cooperating with police after officers detained Justin Penrose from its Sunday Mirror newspaper, while Sky News named the other journalist as Tom Savage from the Daily Star Sunday. The two were arrested as part of an inquiry into inappropriate payments to police which were uncovered by a wider probe into phone-hacking. Phone-hacking scandal forced Murdoch to close his News of the World tabloid last year. However a former Mirror journalist, Greig Box-Turnbull, was arrested earlier this month on suspicion of bribery and causing misconduct in a public office. A spokesman for his new employer, Westminster Council, confirmed the arrest to Reuters but declined to comment any further. A police statement said on Wednesday: “A 37-year-old man was arrested at his home in Kent and a 34-year-old man at his home in south-east London at approximately 6.00 hours this morning, on suspicion of conspiracy to corrupt and of conspiracy to cause misconduct in a public office. “The two, both journalists, are being questioned at police stations in Kent and south-east London.”
