Ex-News Of The World Hollywood Reporter Arrested On Hacking Charges

Police arrested James Desborough for phone hacking that took place before April 2009, when he moved to Hollywood to become News Of The World’s U.S. editor, The Guardian and other British papers say. Still, the 13th arrest in Scotland Yard’s Operation Weeting investigation could open an important new front in the scandal: U.S. officials would have to become far more deeply involved if Desborough revealed that Rupert Murdoch’s defunct tabloid hacked voicemail messages of Hollywood celebs. There’s been no evidence yet that the paper regularly hacked phones in the U.S. — but it has seemed logical to scandal watchers that NOTW reporters would find it irresistible to do so in the world’s entertainment capital. Just before Desborough was assigned to cover Hollywood, he won the British Press Award for being the show business reporter of the year. Judges said that his “uncompromising scoops” show that “no celebrity with secrets can sleep easy.”