08 July 2011

News International bribe corrupt Police for crime evidence

News of the World may be dead, and in recent days we have become increasingly aware of the public's distaste about the total disregard of the News of The World's staff for individual privacy. News International has shown complete disrespect for the Law and is quite happy to act corruptly and bribe the Police.

The Sun newspaper published one of the photographs from my wedding day, on page 9 of its 19 November 1993 edition. How did the Sun get hold of a private photo, which was not in the public domain, and was in fact my personal copyright?


Sun Newspaper 19 November 1993

We now know that News International journalists would routinely bribe Police officers in order to obtain information about cases being investigated by the Police. It is clear that money must have changed hands at my home shortly after my arrest. Otherwise, how on earth would the Sun get hold of one of my private wedding photos, unless they had paid a corrupt cop to get access to it?

I have a list of all the Police officers who are were recorded as having access to my home in 1992. I expect one of those Police officers was paid a bribe to give the Sun my wedding photo. Perhaps I should publish this here. However, the details are already available elsewhere on the Internet. My friend John Alexander Symonds (the "Romeo Spy") has explained to me just how this culture of corruption is institutionally endemic within the Police organisation.

I could have considered this as a minor issue - perhaps - compared to the unfairness of the trial I had just experienced over the previous 7/8 weeks. However, the publication of this photo was instrumental in causing my wife to divorce me, and so I blame News International, and Rupert Murdoch in particular, for running an organisation that has this culture of ... "anything goes!" But then we must also consider that James Murdoch, Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson also have a lot to answer for.

So, what should I do about the publication of my wedding photo, something which I never agreed to?

However, this was not the only abuse by the press after I was arrested. Many details about my wife and I were leaked and published to try to undermine my Defence before the case got to trial. For example, one of the worst things to happen involved another Rupert Murdoch newspaper - The Sunday Times. Only a month after my arrest all the Police claims against me were published in the Sunday Times on 6th September 1992. This was particularly damaging as many of those allegations were later dropped before my trial, but obviously the accuracy of these reports was not important to either the journalists, the newspapers or the Police!