A reporter from the English Mirror newspaper who was allegedly sold a quantity of cannabis by the son of a Cabinet minister was arrested yesterday.
On Christmas Eve the tabloid Mirror published an account of how Ms Dawn Alford met the minister's teenage son in a London pub, where he allegedly sold her 1.92 grams of cannabis resin for £10.
The police decision to detain Ms Alford (30) after she voluntarily attended a London police station for interview was condemned by the paper's editor, Mr Piers Morgan, as "an affront to investigative journalism".
He said police had conceded there was no evidence that Ms Alford intended to keep the cannabis, and her detention had clearly been ordered because of the "sensitive position" held by the minister. He urged the Home Secretary, Mr Jack Straw, to intervene and launch an inquiry into how this "farcical situation" arose.
Ms Alford was later released on police bail to return to the station in February, while a decision is taken about whether to charge her.
Before publishing its story, the paper contacted the unnamed minister to tell him what had happened. The minister responded by taking the youth to a London police station on Monday of last week where he was arrested and released on police bail.
The paper meanwhile had passed the substance bought by Ms Alford to a forensic laboratory, which confirmed that it was cannabis resin.
Mr Morgan last night issued a statement denouncing her arrest as a "serious error of judgment".
He said: "This is an outrageous decision which is, in my opinion, specifically designed to deflect attention from the criminal activities of a Cabinet minister's son to the entirely justifiable methods deployed by a newspaper to uncover them."
The minister had personally expressed gratitude to the paper for the way it had handled the story without identifying the youth, Mr Morgan added.
Although Ms Alford could now face prosecution, it would be highly unusual for charges to be pressed for a first-time offence of possessing such a small amount of cannabis.