Scotland yard chief Paul Stephenson quits, Rebekah Brooks arrested
(CBS/AP) LONDON - The voicemail hacking and police bribery scandal has cut even deeper into Rupert Murdoch's media empire and London authorities with the arrest of former British newspaper executive Rebekah Brooks and the resignation of the head of Scotland Yard, Paul Stephenson.
Though the two have denied any wrongdoing, both developments are ominous not only for Murdoch's News Corp., but for a British power structure that nurtured a cozy relationship with his papers for years.
The arrest on Sunday of the 43-year-old Brooks, often described as a surrogate daughter to the 80-year-old Murdoch, brought the British police investigations into the media baron's inner circle for the first time. She was released on bail some 12 hours later, Scotland Yard announced early Monday.
Until her resignation Friday, Brooks was the defiant chief executive of News International, Murdoch's British newspaper arm, whose News of the World tabloid stands accused of hacking into the phones of celebrities, politicians, other journalists and even murder victims. In the tumultuous last two weeks, she had kept her job even as Murdoch shut down the 168-year-old News of the World and tossed 200 other journalists out of work.
On Sunday she showed up for a prearranged meeting with London police investigating the hacking and was arrested. She questioned on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications - phone hacking - and on suspicion of corruption, which relates to bribing police for information.
Hours after Brooks' arrest, Stephenson said he was resigning as commissioner of London's force because of "speculation and accusations" about his links to Neil Wallis, a former News of the World executive editor who was arrested last week in the scandal. Wallis worked for the London police as a part-time PR consultant for a year until September 2010.
Stephenson said he did not make the decision to hire Wallis and had no knowledge of allegations that he was linked to phone hacking, but he wanted his police force to focus on preparing for the 2012 London Olympics instead of wondering about a possible leadership change.
Brooks' arrest was the latest blow for Murdoch, the once all-powerful figure courted by British politicians of all stripes. Now Murdoch is struggling to tame a scandal that has already destroyed News of the World and sunk the media baron's dream of taking full control of a lucrative satellite broadcaster, British Sky Broadcasting.