Lucy Panton

Lucy Panton is a British journalist, a former News of the World crime editor, and the seventh person arrested under Operation Elveden on 15 December 2011.[1]

Panton joined the News of the World in September 2002 from the Sunday People, taking up the position of crime correspondent. She was promoted to crime editor in October 2005.[2][3]

On 30 October 2010, Panton was asked by News of the World news editor James Mellor to find out more from Metropolitan Police anti-terror head John Yates about the printer cartridge bomb found on a cargo plane at East Midlands Airport the previous day. Mellor wrote in an email to Panton:[4]

“ John Yates could be crucial here. Have you spoken to him? Really need an excl (exclusive) splash (front page) line so time to call in all those bottles of champagne... ”

Panton replied: "Noted. Not got hold of him yet still trying." Panton was on maternity leave at the time of the closure of the newspaper in July 2011.[2][3]

Panton was arrested at her home in Surrey, where she lives with her Scotland Yard-based Metropolitan Police detective husband.[1] The couple have two young children. She was later released on police bail.[2]

During his evidence to the Leveson Inquiry in March 2012, former Metropolitan Police anti-terror head John Yates admitted that he drunk champagne with Panton and other executives from the tabloid newspaper.[5] Yates denied that he gave Panton any favours in return for such hospitality, or that the relationship between the two was that close.[6]

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