Sun payments: some ‘military sources’ fictitious or retired, court hears
|
Version 0 of 1. The police investigation into alleged unlawful payments by the Sun’s chief reporter to public officials for stories discovered that some of the “military sources” were not even in the army, a jury has heard. Officers investigating John Kay’s sources discovered some were retired army contacts while one individual he wanted to pay for a story was another journalist. An Old Bailey trial of four Sun senior journalists heard on Monday that one of the payments John Kay had requested was for an “RAF officer”. The police discovered this after being handed emails and documents by Sun publisher News International’s management and standards committee (MSC). DC Jim Britton confirmed that the RAF officer was fictitious. When the Metropolitan police submitted a request to the MSC requesting it identify that source, they were told the payment went to an aviation journalist, he said. Another request for a payment to a “military contact” was made to a “former public official”, while another request the police investigated went to a retired public official, DC Britton confirmed. He was also quizzed about an inquiry the police made about an expense claim Kay had submitted for £186 for a lunch with “three incredibly important military contacts”. The expense claim was marked “military contacts”, the jury heard. When the police submitted a formal request to the MSC for the identity of these contacts, they were told the payment “had been made to a former public official who at the time was no longer a public official”. The police officer was being questioned by Geoffrey Cox QC for Geoffrey Webster, the deputy editor of the paper and one of four senior Sun journalists including Kay on trial over allegations that they plotted to cause misconduct in public office by approving or requesting payments to public officials for stories. They deny all charges. Britton confirmed to the jury that Webster’s trial centres on seven articles that appeared over the two years relating to the charge faced by the deputy editor, in 2010 and 2011. Among payments at the centre of the trial are those allegedly made to an MoD official, Bettina Jordan-Barber. The jury heard that she had received 35 payments for 69 stories between 2004 and 2011. She left her post in 2009, the jury heard. In 2010 and 2011, the indictment period concerning Webster, there were just seven payments to Jordan-Barber – five in 2010 and two in 2011. This compared with 11 payments in 2007, the jury heard, 13 in 2008 and 13 in 2009. Kay and Webster, along with the paper’s executive editor Fergus Shanahan, have been charged with conspiring with Jordan-Barber to commit misconduct in public office. Webster faces a second charge that he conspired with an unknown serving officer on three days in November 2010 to commit misconduct in public office. Also on trial is Sandhurst C Sgt John Hardy for alleged misconduct in public office for selling stories to the Sun. His wife and the paper’s royal editor Duncan Larcombe are charged with aiding and abetting him in the alleged offence. They all deny the charges. Among the stories under scrutiny was one, written by Kay, Larcombe and another Sun reporter about a “Colonel Lustard”. It was confirmed by a separate police officer that this story about a female colleague, Colonel Slay, and her ex-fiancee Stephen Prince, who had written “a long complaint essentially complaining that he had come home early one day and found his fiancee in bed with another man” and that this should be investigated under “army rules”. Slay had responded that Prince’s complaint was “vindictive and angry”. Under cross-examination by Cox, the police officer confirmed that Prince was not in the army. On re-examination by the prosecution, the police officer said Prince worked at a naval historical office and was a “government employee”. The trial continues. |