LONDON: British prosecutors charged a senior female Scotland Yard police officer yesterday with illegally supplying information to Rupert Murdoch’s now-defunct News of the World tabloid.
April Casburn, a detective chief inspector in the specialist operations unit of London’s Metropolitan Police, faces one charge of misconduct in a public office, the Crown Prosecution Service said.
“This charge relates to an allegation that DCI Casburn contacted the News of the World newspaper and offered to provide information,” said Alison Levitt, the principal legal advisor to the director of public prosecutions.
Casburn will appear in court in London on October 1.
The charges stem from Operation Elveden, an investigation by British police into alleged inappropriate payments to police and public officials by journalists.
It was one of three Scotland Yard investigations set up in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal that forced Australian-born Murdoch to shut down the 168-year-old News of the World in July 2011.
Fifty people have been arrested under Elveden while 24 people have been held under the phone-hacking probe, Operation Weeting.
Eight people - including Andy Coulson, the ex-News of the World editor and former spokesman for Prime Minister David Cameron, and Rebekah Brooks, the former News International chief - have been charged with phone-hacking.
Police have also arrested 13 people under Operation Tuleta, a third probe into computer hacking and breaches of privacy.
AFP
