POLICE are examining payments to a "network of corrupt officials," including a public servant who received £80,000 over several years, by staff at The Sun.
Sue Akers, Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, told the Leveson Inquiry into press ethics that evidence suggested money changed hands between the tabloid's journalists and officials across "all areas of public life".
Ms Akers, who is heading the Operation Elveden inquiry into illegal payments, which has seen 10 of the newspaper's journalists arrested, said one employee had received more than £150,000 in cash over several years to pay his sources.
She told the hearing in London: "There appears to have been a culture at The Sun of illegal payments and systems created to facilitate those payments."
She said journalists appeared to have been "well aware" that "what they were doing was unlawful".
Ms Akers said payments did not appear to amount to the "odd drink or meal" but to "regular, frequent and sometimes significant amounts of money to small numbers of public officials".
She told the inquiry there was evidence of "multiple payments amounting to thousands of pounds". She added one public official had "over a period of several years [received] amounts in excess of £80,000".
Ms Akers said police were investigating "possible offences" of corruption, misconduct in public office and conspiracy.
In addition, police officers, an employee of the Ministry of Defence and a member of the armed forces, had been held. More than 60 officers are involved in Operation Elveden,
Ms Akers said because of the nature of the investigation it was "easier" to identify journalists than public officials. She said police hoped to reveal the identities of public officials involved.
She added: "The vast majority of the disclosures that have been made have led to stories which I would describe as salacious gossip. Not what I would describe as being remotely in the public interest."
News Corporation chairman and chief executive Rupert Murdoch said: "We have vowed to do everything we can to get to the bottom of prior wrongdoings in order to set us on the right path for the future.
"That process is well under way. The practices Sue Akers described at the Leveson Inquiry are ones of the past and no longer exist at The Sun."
Former Labour deputy prime minister John Prescott told the inquiry "politicians at the highest level were just too close to Murdoch."
He added: "There is always a price. It is not exactly corruption: they do have interests, power, and in the Murdoch press it is particularly organised to achieve that."
The inquiry also heard that in 2006 Scotland Yard briefed Rebekah Brooks, then editor of The Sun, about its investigation into illegal interception of voicemails. It came just weeks after the arrests of royal editor Clive Goodman and private detective Glenn Mulcaire. She was told detectives were confident Goodman and Mulcaire were "bang to rights" but they would only widen the case to include other News of the World employees if they found "direct evidence" of wrongdoing.
Former Scotland Yard deputy assistant commissioner Brian Paddick has called for responsibility for the hacking inquiry to be taken off the Metropolitan Police.
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