C-cksucker Blues

It turns out that journalists working for Rupert Murdoch routinely gave cash to police officers for inside info to use as the basis of their articles. It is broadly agreed it is a gross dereliction of duty, borderline corruption etc. for a police officer to accept such payments.

Which reminds me of the Gillian Taylforth saga: the only really hard (sic) fact to emerge from her libel action against The Sun (the weekday edition of The News Of The World - both of them are Rupert Murdoch newspapers) was this:

Here was one of the best-known stars of EastEnders [a British television series] suing over allegations that she and her lover, a wealthy businessman with a criminal record, had been having oral sex in their Range Rover when they were spotted by a policeman... The couple's case was not helped by the fact that Mr Knights signed a caution admitting the offence of indecency after being taken to the police station.

It struck me at the time that the only way The Sun could have found out about this was if a police officer told them, no doubt in return for cash in a brown envelope - there were no other witnesses. Unlike criminal convictions in an open court, the details of cautions (= an admission of the alleged offence in exchange for charges being dropped) are not made public.

So while Ms T lost her libel action (the court appears to have decided that, as a matter of fact, she did give Mr K a blow job, and telling the truth is absolute defence against a defamation case), isn't there a police officer somewhere who ought to be locked up and/or have his pension rights taken away etc?