LONDON – Police have arrested News of the Worldreporter James Weatherup as part of an expanded inquiry into phone hacking by reporters at the Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper.
The Metropolitan Police said in a statement that they arrested a man in connection with their phone-hacking inquiry at 8am yesterday.
The man, whom the police did not identify, has now been released on bail, according to a separate statement.
Weatherup was formerly an assistant news editor at the tabloid. He is the third person arrested in the inquiry this month.
Last week police arrested Ian Edmondson, a former news editor at the tabloid who was fired in January, and Neville Thurlbeck, the paper’s chief reporter.
British police reopened the case for the third time after more than a dozen civil lawsuits were filed by alleged victims of the hacking and News Corp’s UK unit gave “significant new information” to investigators.
“This arrest seems to be an unexpected one,” Chris Goodall, an analyst at Enders Analysis, said. “This guy hadn’t been mentioned before, which suggests that everybody in the senior ranks in the News of the World in the last decade will be nervously looking behind them.”
The News of the World has been dogged by allegations that reporters listened in to private voice-mail messages in order to get stories since a former editor and a private investigator were jailed in 2007 for hacking the mobile phones of members of the royal household.
Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator, in 2006 admitted five other counts of phone hacking relating to soccer executive Gordon Taylor, agent Sky Andrew, publicist Max Clifford, model Elle Macpherson, footballer Sol Campbell and MP Simon Hughes. News of the Worldspokesman Chris Pragnell declined to comment. – (Bloomberg)