Prison Officer Charged
9 July 2013, 10:24 | Updated: 9 July 2013, 10:29
An officer at Milton Keynes' Woodhill Prison has been charged with passing information about inmates to journalists.
Scott Chapman and his ex-partner Lynn Gaffney are facing allegations that they received thousands of pounds from a number of newspapers.
Chapman is accused of having sold the information to the News of the World, the Sun, the Daily Mirror, the Sunday Mirror, the People, the Daily Star and the Star on Sunday between March 2010 and June 2011, receiving payments through Gaffney.
Prosecutors claim they received 13 payments totalling £9,300 from News International in respect of 11 articles published in the News of the World and the Sun; 13 payments totalling £12,800 from Express Newspapers in respect of 23 articles published in the the Daily Star and the Star on Sunday; and £13,050 in payments from Trinity Mirror newspaper group in respect of 14 articles published in the the Daily Mirror, the Sunday Mirror and the People.
Chapman and Gaffney are each facing four counts of conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office.
Tom Savage, deputy news editor from the Daily Star Sunday, is accused of paying Chapman for information on a high-profile prisoner.
He is facing one count of conspiracy to commit misconduct in a public office for allegedly paying for the details, as is former News of the World crime editor Lucy Panton.
A journalist from the Mirror Group has been told they will face no further action.
In a separate case, Sun journalist Chris Pharo is facing accusations that he authorised payments to public officials employed at Broadmoor secure hospital, Thames Valley, Surrey and Metropolitan Police, officers in the British Army and prison officials between January 2006 and December 2010.
Pharo, who was news editor and then head of news at the Sun, will be charged with one count of conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office.
One journalist and three public officials are to face no further action after prosecutors decided there was not enough evidence.
Chapman, Gaffney, Panton, Savage and Pharo will appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court on July 18.