A Guardian journalist, Amelia Hill, who was leading the coverage of the phone-hacking scandal for the Guardian has been placed under caution and questioned by police at Scotland Yard over alleged leaks from police.
It is thought that the questioning of Ms Hill, who has broken a string of exclusives surrounding the phone hacking probe, was linked to the arrest earlier this month of a 51-year-old detective on suspicion of leaking information to the newspaper.
It has been claimed she published information based on leaks from the detective assigned to the inquiry into the phone hacking probe centered on Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World.
Hill has indeed written several exclusive stories for the Guardian about the investigation into the phone hacking scandal at the now defunct Sunday tabloid.
In response to the police questioning of Hill, the Guardian argued that the case could have lasting repercussions for the way journalists deal with police officers. The statement added:
“On a broader point, journalists would no doubt be concerned if the police sought to criminalise conversations between off-record sources and reporters.”
However, the Guardian, whose coverage of the phone-hacking scandal regarding Rupert Murdoch and News of the World was as sanctimonious as it was zealous, still – as far as I can tell – hasn’t responded to the acknowledgement by David Leigh, the Guardian’s investigations executive editor, back in 2006, that he repeatedly engaged in phone hacking. As we noted previously, David Leigh also happens to be Guardian Editor Alan Rusbridger’s brother in law.
It was also recently reported that Leigh negligently disclosed top-secret WikiLeaks’ decryption passwords, thus enabling public access to hundreds of thousands of unredacted unpublished US diplomatic cables.
Related articles
- Another interesting twist in the Guardian phone hacking scandal (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian Assistant Editor, David Leigh, admitted to phone hacking (cifwatch.com)
- Phone Hacking by Guardian reporters: How far does it go? (cifwatch.com)
