Former Sun features editor Matt Nixson has been accused of bribing a prison guard to obtain information on Soham killer Ian Huntley in court documents filed by his former employer News International.
According to a report by Bloomberg, Nixson (who was features editor at the News of the World for five years) allegedly told a reporter in an email dated 7 March 2009 to pay £750 to the guard for details about Huntley.
Nixson then said to ‘chuck her some more money later’because she wanted £1,000 pounds, according to the court papers.
Nixson is suing News Internaitonal over his sacking from the paper in July.
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He was summarily dismissed without notice pay in July for gross misconduct on the orders of News Corp’s Management and Standards Committee, which was set up to preside over the post phone-hacking scandal clean-up operation.
The Bloomberg report states:
Nixson ‘was guilty of gross misconduct, or at any rate, conduct justifying dismissal without notice or pay,’members of the company’s Management and Standards Committee, which is running the investigation, said in the court filing.
Alison Downie of Goodman Derrick LLP in London, Nixson’s lawyer, said in an e-mailed statement that ‘my client wishes to make it absolutely clear that he neither bribed, nor ever admitted to bribing a prison officer’and will continue to pursue his claims against the company and committee.
Nixson, who was fired in July, knew bribing the guard was wrong because he told the reporter, Matthew Acton, to arrange the payment ‘very carefully,’since the company had a ‘forensic new accountant who doesn’t brook any funny business,’according to the filing.
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