[July 08, 2011] 2ND LEAD: British police arrest former editor over phone-hacking Tweet LONDON, Jul 08, 2011 (dpa - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Andy Coulson, the former editor of the News of the World and close aide of Prime Minister David Cameron, was arrested Friday in connection with allegations of corruption and phone-hacking, Scotland Yard said. Coulson, 43, had always denied knowing about the practices when he was editor of the News of the World between 2003 and 2007. He was appointed by Cameron as the Conservative Party's press spokesman in 2007, and became the communications chief of the Conservative-Liberal government last year. Coulson resigned from the post in January in connection with the scandal. His arrest came a day after the owners of Britain's best-selling tabloid said they would close it down because of the scandal. The paper would appear for the last time on Sunday, said James Murdoch, the heir to Rupert Murdoch's empire and chairman of the paper's owner, News International. Meanwhile, Cameron acknowledged Friday that Britain was going through a "time of crisis" over the phone-hacking allegations. He demanded a new system of regulation for the press after what he said was a "wake-up call" for press standards and freedom. "This is a time of crisis and concern," Cameron told a news conference in Downing Street. "We are all in this together, including me," admitted Cameron, in a reference to his relationship with Coulson. "The decision to hire him was mine and mine alone, and I take full responsibility for it," said Cameron. The move to shut down the 168-year-old newspaper came after figures showed that 4,000 people had been subjected to illegal phone-hacking by investigators and journalists working for the paper. Over the past week, allegations that surfaced as a result of ongoing police investigations showed that the News of the World intercepted not only the mobile phones of politicians and celebrities, but also of crime victims. The allegation that investigators hacked into the phone of Milly Dowler, a teenager who was abducted and killed in 2002, caused a public outcry. It was alleged that investigators erased messages from the girl's voicemail, giving her parents the "false hope" that she was still alive. It has also been alleged that relatives of victims of the 2005 suicide bombings on London's transport system were subjected to phone-hacking. It was revealed Thursday that investigators had also allegedly hacked into the phone messages of relatives of soldiers who died in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Britain, Murdoch also owns the Sun, the Times and the Sunday Times. To see more of dpa, go to http://www.dpa.de/English.82.0.html Copyright (c) 2011, dpa, Berlin Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For more information about the content services offered by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services (MCT), visit www.mctinfoservices.com. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]