‘News of the World’ staffer suspended over Sienna Miller phone tap
06 Jan 2011
A senior editor of the News of the World has been suspended following a "serious allegation" related to phone hacking.
Ian Edmondson, the assistant editor (news) of Britain's Sunday tabloid, was suspended before Christmas, after phone-hacking allegations emerged involving Hollywood actress Sienna Miller.
The paper's USP is salacious gossip about celebrities, along with titillating pictures. Edmondson is alleged to have asked private investigator Glenn Mulcaire to hack into phones belonging to Miller and her staff. Miller is suing the paper's parent company, the Rupert Murdoch-owned News International.
The suspension of Edmondson (with full pay) fuels a phone-hack scandal that erupted when the paper was edited by Andy Coulson, the man who is now British premier David Cameron's director of communications.
Coulson, the former royal correspondent at the News of the World, was jailed in 2007 for conspiracy to access mobile phone messages involving Princes William and Harry. He was editor of the paper at the time and resigned over the affair, although he insisted he knew nothing about it.
In the latest twist to the phone-hacking saga, a document lodged at the high court in London links Edmondson with the interception of voicemail messages from the phone of Miller.
