REPORT: FORMER TABLOID EDITOR PAID BY PAPER AND POLICE

A former deputy editor of the now-defunct British tabloid News of the World, was paid nearly $40,000 after leaving the newspaper and going to work as a consultant for Scotland Yard. The London Daily Telegraph disclosed that the money was paid to Neil Wallis in late 2009 and 2010 for “crime exclusives” that included details of police investigations. The newspaper said that the payments, from the tabloid’s parent, News International, were uncovered by the new police team who are currently investigating the phone hacking scandal that eventually forced NI to shut down News of the World. News of Wallis’s work for Scotland Yard eventually played a significant role in the resignations of the police agency’s two senior officers, Paul Stephenson and John Yates. Meanwhile, five additional lawsuits have been filed or are about to be filed against News International, one of them by the mother of former (U.K.) Big Brother star Jade Goody, who claims that Goody’s phone and her own were hacked while Goody was dying of cancer. Some of the attorneys representing hacking victims in the U.K. said over the weekend that they are teaming up with U.S. civil liberties lawyer Norman Siegel to bring legal action against News Corp, the U.S.-based owner of News International, and against executives of the media conglomerate, including Chairman Rupert Murdoch.