The Sun's Whitehall editor Codagh Hartley cleared of bribing a public official
A senior journalist working for The Sun newspaper has been cleared of making an improper payment to a public official, after a jury decided that the transaction had been in the public interest.
Codagh Hartley, the paper’s former Whitehall editor, admitted authorising a £17,000 payment to a press officer at Revenue & Customs in order to obtain details of the last Labour budget.
Prosecutors had asserted that press freedoms did not extend to bribing public officials for confidential information but a jury agreed with the defence that this was necessary to obtain data without any political spin attached.
Hartley met the press officer involved, Jonathan Hall, in a coffee shop on the day prior to the 2010 budget where she was shown edited highlights of the looming announcement.
Hartley told the court: “I thought there was a massive public interest in this, for our readers having this information before it was packaged and submitted to media spin the next day.”
For his part Hall has already pleaded guilty and will be sentenced at a later date. The four week trial is estimated to have cost the public purse close to £1m.