A woman was arrested this morning by officers investigating the phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World.
The 39-year-old woman, who has not been named by police, was arrested by officers from the Met’s Operation Weeting on suspicion of conspiring to intercept mobile phone voicemail messages.
She was arrested at 06.55am at a residential address in West Yorkshire and has been taken to a West Yorkshire police station for questioning.
A Met spokesman said: ‘The Operation Weeting team is conducting the new investigation into phone hacking. It would be inappropriate to discuss any further details regarding this case at this time.”
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The Guardian reports that the woman arrested is not believed to be a journalist.
She is the fourth person to be arrested since Operation Weeting – the second investigation into phone-hacking at the NoW – was launched earlier this year.
The other three are all NoW journalists:assistant news editor James Weatherup, chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck and former assistant editor (news) Ian Edmondson. Although Edmondson has been dismissed from his job at the paper, the other two remain employed at the title. None of them have yet been charged.
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News International said in a statement: “This morning’s events did not relate to a current employee or a former full-time member of staff of the News of the World.
“We have been cooperating fully with the police inquiry since our voluntary disclosure of evidence reopened the police investigation. Since then we have been determined to deal with these issues both on the criminal and civil side. In April we admitted liability in several civil cases and we are attempting to bring these to a fair resolution.”
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