By John Glenday

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 £17k 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 Read full story ›

Source: The Drum