Ex-Officer Charged Over Bribes From News Corp.’s Sun Title

News Corp.’s tabloid bribery scandal triggered more criminal charges after U.K. prosecutors said a former police officer near London sold details about two incidents involving “high-profile” people.

Alan Tierney, who worked in Surrey, England, took 1,750 pounds ($2,750) from News Corp.’s Sun tabloid in 2009, in exchange for information about a shoplifting arrest and the personal details of a witness in a domestic-violence case, the Crown Prosecution Service said today.

“Both of these incidents were linked to high-profile people,” Alison Levitt, the CPS’s principal legal adviser, said in an e-mailed statement. An unidentified member of the public who was implicated in the case won’t be charged due to “insufficient evidence,” she said.

The bribery probe, named Operation Elveden, has led to nearly 60 arrests, including prison workers, members of the military, Sun journalists and Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive officer of News Corp.’s U.K. unit. A 33-year-old officer in the Metropolitan Police Service in London’s specialist crime unit was arrested in the investigation last week.

The Sun is the main target of the bribery probe, while News Corp.’s other U.K. tabloid, the now-defunct News of the World, is at the center of a related phone-hacking scandal.

April Casburn, a senior London police detective, was sentenced on Feb. 1 to 15 months in prison for trying to sell information about the phone hacking probe to the News of the World.

She was the first person to be sentenced in the cases. Other criminal trials are scheduled for later this year.

The Met said in a separate statement today that a 25-year- old man arrested in the bribery probe a year ago will face no further action in the investigation.

To contact the reporter on this story: Erik Larson in London at elarson4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Anthony Aarons at aaarons@bloomberg.net