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News International grassed employees in bid to stave off prosecution

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By John Glenday, Reporter

November 6, 2014 | 2 min read

Embattled media giant News International has been accused of ‘shopping their own staff’ by a detective superintendent working on the case, this time from the defence counsel for six journalists accused of bribing public officials to obtain confidential information.

Mark Kandiah, told a trial of the men, who deny the charges, that News International was ‘certainly cooperative’, adding ‘…In slang, they were shopping their own staff.’

Kandiah’s statement followed a line of questioning from defence counsel Nigel Rumfitt QC, representing The Sun’s head of news, Chris Pharo, who asked whether News International were acting in their own interests to protect their reputation.

Material relating to specific employees handed to the police included, according to Kandiah, incriminating emails sent by former Sun editors Rebekah Brooks and Dominic Mohan, discussing sign off of cash payments to confidential sources, part of efforts to stave off a wider corporate charge.

Ironically no such deal was ever struck with the police and the Crown Prosecution Service later went ahead and issued a letter confirming that criminal prosecution remained a possibility.

Pharo is in the dock alongside former managing editor Graham Dudman, former deputy news editor Ben O’Driscoll, reporter Jamie Pyatt, former reporter John Troup and picture editor John Edwards.

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