Douglas Wight is also charged with conspiracy to hack telephones and breaching the Data Protection Act

This article is more than 8 years old

This article is more than 8 years old

A former news editor of the News of the World Scotland has been arrested and charged with committing perjury and conspiracy to hack telephones.

Douglas Wight was arrested by Scottish police late on Thursday over evidence he gave in the trial of former MSP Tommy Sheridan in 2010.

Strathclyde police said Wight was also charged with multiple counts of conspiracy to obtain personal data of members of the public, in breach of the Data Protection Act.

The force, working with senior prosecutors at the Crown Office, Scotland's prosecution authority, said a report on Wight's charges would be submitted to Scotland's procurator fiscal.

He is the second person arrested by Strathclyde police under Operation Rubicon, the Glasgow force's inquiry into phone hacking in Scotland and alleged perjury during Sheridan's trial.

Andy Coulson, the prime minister's former communications director, was detained in May for suspected perjury in the trial.

Coulson faced two days of questioning at the trial in December 2010 over his knowledge of phone hacking at the News of the World. He repeatedly denied Sheridan's allegations that the practice was widespread at the paper.

The former News of the World editor, who appeared at Westminster magistrates court on Thursday to face separate charges of conspiracy to intercept voicemail messages, has said he will vigorously contest the perjury allegations.

Wight left the News of the World in July 2011, when it was closed down by News International in the wake of the phone hacking scandal.

From 2007 to July 2011, he was the News of the World's books editor based in London and before that was the paper's features editor.

Wight was questioned at the trial about his dealings with Fiona McGuire, whose claims that she had an affair with Sheridan were published in a News of the World story in 2004.

Sheridan was convicted of perjury at the trial in December 2010. The MSP was on trial for lying in court when he won a £200,000 defamation action against the News of the World in August 2006. He was freed a year into his three-year sentence.

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