A PRIVATE investigator was used by Mirror newspapers to pay bribes to a royal protection officer in exchange for stories, secret police transcripts reveal, as a Guardian editor faced possible investigation for admitting he had hacked phone messages.
Documents from a covert police bugging operation against Jonathan Rees show how the private detective created a network of corrupt police officers to supply information to the Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror, as well as the News of the World.
A police file detailing the eavesdropping against Rees – performed during a murder investigation – states: “We have obtained evidence of corrupt practices relating to a (Sunday Mirror) journalist.”
It alleges that the reporter indirectly “pays serving police officers” to provide internal official documents. Police raided the reporter’s home after the bugging in 1999, arrested him and seized several documents, but chose not to prosecute. Rees was at that time a suspect in the 1987 murder of his business partner, Daniel Morgan, of which he was acquitted earlier this year.
He was convicted of planting cocaine on an innocent woman to discredit her in a custody battle involving another client. He is now believed to be under investigation over an alleged operation by a NOTW reporter to hack into the emails of a former Northern Ireland intelligence officer.
Former NOTW executives have been questioned about payments to corrupt police officers. The Rees transcripts suggest the practice was more widespread.
The reporter no longer works for the Mirror Group, but the disclosures will raise questions about whether payments to serving police officers were ever sanctioned by the company. Mirror Group has already launched an internal investigation into journalistic practices.
Piers Morgan, the former Daily Mirror editor who now presents a show on CNN, has been under pressure to explain if any reporters hacked phones while he was in charge.
It has been alleged that a Mirror scoop about Sven-Goran Eriksson, the former England football manager, originated from a hacked phone message. Morgan has strongly denied the claim.
Meanwhile, it has emerged that David Leigh, assistant editor of the Guardian – which broke the latest round of hacking stories, causing the collapse of the NOTW – spoke five years ago about getting a “voyeuristic thrill” out of hearing private messages.
Speaking to his own newspaper, Leigh added: “I’ve used some of those questionable methods myself over the years.
