Ex-NOTW Reporter Denies Trying To Buy Favours

The former crime editor at the News Of The World newspaper has denied she lived a "champagne lifestyle" trying to buy favours by wining and dining police officers.

Lucy Panton, who was arrested and is a suspect in the ongoing investigation into corrupt payments to officers, was giving evidence to the Leveson Inquiry into media ethics.

Ms Panton was asked by Robert Jay, counsel for the inquiry, whether she had ever drank champagne with a police officer.

The witness said she would drink a couple of glasses of champagne at Crime Reporters' Association dinners. "It didn't flow in huge quantities," she added.

The inquiry has heard ex-Met assistant commissioner Andy Hayman spent £47 on a bottle of Veuve Clicquot champagne while drinking with a female NOTW journalist at the Oriel restaurant in Chelsea on the evening of February 1, 2007.

Ms Panton said she was "confident" she was not the reporter in question.

The former crime editor told the inquiry she found it "rather bizarre" that there seemed to be so much interest in whether or not she drank champagne.

Ex-NOTW Reporter Denies Trying To Buy Favours 

She said in a written statement: "I enjoy champagne but do not drink it often. I believe that a distorted picture has been presented of how journalists carry out their business.

"We do not live a champagne lifestyle and the reality of the day-to-day grind of journalism is far from glamorous."

Lord Justice Leveson is currently exploring the relationship between the police and the press and whether that relationship may have been too close in some instances.

Ms Panton was also asked about her friendship with the Metropolitan Police's former assistant commissioner John Yates.

He was forced to resign from the Yard over his links to ex-NOTW executive editor Neil Wallis, although he has always denied he behaved inappropriately.

The witness told the hearing that Mr Yates had attended her wedding.

She said Mr Yates, the former head of the Met's counter-terrorism unit, was just one of "many" police officers of all ranks who were guests when she married a Scotland Yard detective.

She told the inquiry: "There were a few people at my wedding who I would class as working friends, who I didn't socialise with outside of work.

"Mr Yates falls into that category. I certainly got on well with him. I had a good rapport with him. But we didn't socialise outside of work. The wedding was the only occasion."

Ms Panton was then asked about an internal email to her from the NOTW newsdesk in October 2010.

It stated: "Time to call in all those bottles of champagne" to get inside information from Mr Yates about a terrorist plot to blow up aircraft.

The journalist said this was just "banter" from one of her bosses, insisting: "There were no bottles of champagne."

She said: "I think he was putting pressure on me to get a story."

She added: "My recollection of this is that I did phone Mr Yates, and I don't believe I actually got to speak to him. That was the reality, week in, week out."

Ms Panton was arrested last December by detectives from Operation Eleveden, on suspicion of making corrupt payments to police officers. She was later bailed and has not been charged.