MPs ask Rebekah Brooks for details of Sun's payments to police News International chief executive told Commons committee in 2003 that payments had been made to officers

Share   James Robinson guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 30 March 2011 19.52 BST Article history

Rebekah Brooks told a select committee in 2003 that her journalists had paid the police for information.

The News International chief executive, Rebekah Brooks, was asked by the chair of a Commons committee late on Wednesday to provide details of payments made by the Sun newspaper to police officers.

The request to the paper's former editor, who now runs all of Rupert Murdoch's UK newspapers, follows evidence given by John Yates, the acting deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan police, to the home affairs select committee on Tuesday.

Keith Vaz MP, the chairman of the committee, wrote to Brooks on Wednesday asking her for information on how many officers were paid for tips or stories, the amounts they received and when the practice stopped.

Brooks edited the paper for six years from 2003 and was previously editor of its Sunday sister title the News of the World.

Eight years ago, Brooks told the culture, media and sport select committee that "We have paid the police for information in the past." She was appearing with then News of the World editor Andy Coulson, who later resigned after it emerged that one of his journalists had used a private investigator to hack into voicemails left on the mobiles of members of the royal household.

Questioned on Tuesday about Brooks's admission, Yates told MPs that the Met is "doing some research" into her remarks. It is not clear if Scotland Yard has ever questioned Brooks about the payments she referred to.

In his letter of Wednesday, Vaz reminded Brooks: "In March 2003, whilst editor of the Sun newspaper, you gave evidence to the culture, media, and sport committee. You stated that the newspaper had paid police officers for information."

Paying police officers is a criminal offence.

 Yates said during separate evidence he gave to the culture committee last week that "possible offences" might have been committed.

Vaz asked Brooks to reply by Tuesday, when the committee will question the director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer, as part of its ongoing inquiry into phone tapping.

Yates and Starmer are engaged in a public row about the original 2006 police investigation into phone hacking at the News of the World.

Yates insists Scotland Yard was told by the CPS to adopt a narrow definition of the offence which made it difficult to obtain convictions, a claim he has repeated four times before two parliamentary committees. Starmer denies this.

News International had not returned a request for comment by the time of publication.

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