POLICE IN THE UK investigating alleged computer hacking and privacy breaches have arrested a journalist from Rupert Murdoch’s market-leading tabloid The Sun.

Police said one man was arrested in a dawn raid at his home in North London as part of Operation Tuleta, one of three investigations sparked by the phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World, The Sun’s now-defunct sister paper.

The journalist has been named in the British media as Sun reporter Rhodri Phillips.

Sean O’Neill, Crime Editor of The Times newspaper – another publication from the Rupert Murdoch stable – has taken to Twitter to defend the actions which allegedly led to Phillips’ arrest:

Sky reporter Martin Brunt has also tweeted the apparent ‘lost phone’ aspect of the story:

News International, the British newspaper arm of Murdoch’s US-based News Corporation media empire, confirmed that one of its employees had been detained.

“A journalist from The Sun was arrested this morning,” a spokeswoman told AFP.

The arrest is the seventh as part of Operation Tuleta, which is probing breaches of privacy and has so far focused on computer hacking.

The operation is being run alongside Operation Weeting, an investigation into phone hacking at British newspapers, and Operation Elveden, into inappropriate payments by journalists to police and public officials.

More than 60 people have been arrested in the three investigations, including Rebekah Brooks, a former top aide to Murdoch and friend of British Prime Minister David Cameron, and Cameron’s former media chief Andy Coulson.

- Additional reporting by AFP

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