Politicians renew calls for greater media plurality LONDON – Britain's top police chief resigned and the former head of Rupert Murdoch's UK newspaper business was arrested Sunday over a phone-hacking scandal that has rocked pillars of the establishment. Paul Stephenson, London's police commissioner, quit in the face of allegations that police officers had accepted money from Murdoch's News of the World paper and not done enough to investigate phone-hacking charges. Stephenson said he did not want questions about his leadership to undermine the enormous challenge confronting the police in providing security for the Olympic Games in London next year. “I had no knowledge of the extent of this disgraceful practice (of phone-hacking) and the repugnant nature of the selection of victims that is now emerging,” Stephenson said in a televised statement. Stephenson's resignation and the arrest of Rebekah Brooks, one of Murdoch's top lieutenants, were the latest twists in a scandal that has tainted police and politicians and shaken the tycoon's global media empire. Several sources familiar with the situation said Brooks, 43, was being questioned as part of an investigation into allegations of illegal voicemail interception and police bribery at the News of the World tabloid she once edited. Brooks quit as chief executive of News International, the British unit of Murdoch's News Corp, on Friday, but has denied she knew of the alleged hacking of thousands of phones, including that of a murdered schoolgirl. The scandal has shocked the public and raised concerns not only about unethical media practices but about the influence Murdoch has wielded over British leaders and allegations of cosy relationships between some of his journalists and police. With politicians from Australia to the United States demanding to know if similar abuses occurred elsewhere in Murdoch's global media business, the 80-year-old has been forced on the defensive and the position of his son James as heir-apparent has been called into question. British Prime Minister David Cameron has come under fire for his friendship with Brooks and for employing former News of the World editor Andy Coulson as his press secretary after Coulson quit the paper in 2007 following the jailing of a reporter for phone-hacking. “The waters are very definitely lapping around the Murdochs' own ankles,” Chris Bryant, a member of parliament for Britain's opposition Labour Party who has campaigned for years against press malpractice, told Reuters.
