Phone Hacking Phone hacking suspect was a police informer while working at News of the World
A phone-hacking suspect used to work as informer for senior detectives while he was the chief crime reported at the News of the World.
4:16PM BST 19 Jul 2011
Neville Thurlbeck, a senior reporter and news editor at the paper, passed on information to detectives and was given access to data from the Police National Computer to help with stories in return.
The activities will trigger fresh concerns over links between the now defunct tabloid and the Metropolitan Police.
It emerged yesterday that a senior executive at the News of the World moonlighted as an interpreter for the Metropolitan Police for 20 years while still at the newspaper.
Alex Marunchak, an executive editor on the Sunday tabloid, worked for the force between 1980 and 2000 translating for Ukrainian suspects.
Mr Thurlbeck, who was arrested on suspicion of illegally accessing voicemail messages in April, worked as an unpaid police source under the code name "George".
He worked with Detective Constable Richard Farmer, of the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) – a policing body that provided intelligence for Scotland Yard and other forces.
In 2000 Mr Thurlbeck and DC Farmer were cleared of corruption charges after a judge said their “working relationship” was entirely proper.
It was not illegal then to receive information from the PNC so long as it was not paid for.
Summing up the case at Luton crown court at the time, Mr Justice McKinnon said the relationship between Thurlbeck and Farmer was a "symbiotic one – a two-way relationship with information passed both ways".
The court heard that Mr Thurlbeck passed on information that “was of interest” to the police.
In return, Mr Thurlbeck was handed “information principally about criminals’ previous convictions which he obtained from the Police National Computer”.
Such information was used to help with stories, including one about an unnamed Labour MP with a conviction for committing an obscene act and a man said to be involved with serial killer Rosemary West.
The judge in the case directed the jury to acquit the pair after ruling there was no case to answer.
Following his release, Mr Thurlbeck told Press Gazette: "The police were very impressed about the type of intelligence I was coming up with and that was revealed in court. The judge said it was a substantial volume of information that was extremely useful to police."
A source close to Mr Thurlbeck has said his work as an informer has no relevance to current events.
A Scotland Yard spokesperson said it could not discuss confidential sources. A News International spokesman refused to comment.
