5 ways to prepare your advertising infrastructure for disaster

A retired special ops detective has been arrested by officers investigating allegations of illegal payments to police in relation to an ongoing inquiry into the phone-hacking scandal that has swamped Rupert Murdoch's British newspaper business.

The Met confirmed this morning that they had cuffed a 57-year-old man at his home address in Surrey at 6.30am today on suspicion of misconduct in a public office.

The unnamed man had served in the MPS specialist operations command unit in central London.

Scotland Yard said:

Today's arrest is the result of information provided to police by News Corporation's Management Standards Committee. It relates to suspected payments to a former police officer and is not about seeking journalists to reveal confidential sources in relation to information that has been obtained legitimately.

The former cop is currently being grilled at a police station in southwest London while his home address is being searched, the Met added.

His arrest brings the total number of people cuffed and later bailed in relation to Operation Elveden to 27 so far.

Elveden, the official name of the police's investigation into alleged illegal payments to police officers in exchange for information is being undertaken in tandem with two other police operations. The first – Operation Weeting – is a probe into phone-hacking claims at the now-defunct Sunday tabloid News of the Worldand the second – Operation Tuleta – is looking at alleged breaches of privacy including computer hacking.

Just yesterday, News Corp defended its boss Murdoch as being "fit" to run a multinational company, after MPs issued a damning report earlier this week in which they questioned the 81-year-old's ability to run an international business in light of his "wilful blindness" over the phone-hacking saga. ®

Free ESG report : Seamless data management with Avere FXT