Why they don't feel able to help police with their inquiries

Arrested Sun journalists are finding themselves caught between a rock and hard place as they contemplate their dilemma while on police bail.

Some of them would like to help Scotland Yard police who are investigating the alleged paying of public officials but feel constrained from doing so because of the unique situation in which they find themselves.

They say they have refused to answer questions because they fear News International might react by refusing to go on paying their wages and also by cutting off the funding for the lawyers hired to act for them.

Two of the arrested Sun journalists, speaking independently, have told me that they see themselves as being trapped in the middle of a struggle between their employer and the Metropolitan police.

They suspect that officers working for Operation Elveden, the team investigating corrupt payments to public officials, believed that the pressure of being under investigation would cause them to provide information that will lead to the arrests of more senior executives.

And one of the arrested journalists is even convinced that the police are seeking to bring a corporate corruption charge against News International.

During questioning by police, both journalists say officers are clearly seeking to identify any staff higher up the News International chain of command who were responsible for sanctioning payments to their sources.

But the journalists feel inhibited from giving any such evidence to the police because the company has provided them with lawyers, is funding their legal fees and also continuing to pay their wages.

They fear that if they speak out they will lose their legal representation and face being fired. "We are in a Kafkaesque situation," said one of the journalists. "We are just pawns in a bigger game."

Twenty-one Sun journalists are currently on police bail and all but three have returned to work. One reporter has been on bail since November last year. Most were detained in January and February, including five senior executives.

Two of the bailed journalists say that during their interrogations by police they have opted under legal advice to say "no comment" to every question.

One of them said: "I do trust my lawyer, and I understand that it's normal practice not to answer questions. On the other hand, I don't see why I should be in this position when other people in the office knew all about the money I paid and why I paid it.

"It all went through normal channels. There were signed dockets and invoices. There is a paper trail, surely. It was known what I was doing. I couldn't spend that kind of money without it being approved from above."

The second person, speaking separately and unaware of the other source's statement, also said he accepted legal advice not to answer questions.

He said he did not believe his lawyer had a conflict of interest and accepted his advice. Nevertheless, he is anxious to give his side of the story and is aware that this would involve the naming of names.

According to him, police have not so far made an offer of immunity from prosecution should he speak out. This was confirmed by the other journalist. Hopes that the police might offer a deal were crushed when an officer told him that he did not expect that to happen.

He said: "Consider how weird our situation is. The evidence against us that led to our arrests and possible prosecution was provided by News International through its management and standards committee (MSC).

"Now News International are paying for our defence, and even for psychological counselling if we require it. They are also paying our wages. We are are in an intolerable situation because we are advised to say nothing."

A police source has indicated that the MSC changed its terms of reference after initial attempts were made to establish how high up the tree the knowledge of wrongdoing went. This inquiry appears to have been discontinued.

The two arrested journalists are both convinced that News International's former chairman, James Murdoch, and his senior executive advisers set up the MSC out of panic.

"They really didn't expect to unleash a monster," said one of them who believes that James's father, Rupert, would have foreseen the mess and therefore would have avoided creating the MSC in order to assist the police.

NB: Neither journalist was in the least critical of their legal advisers. They understand that a lawyer's responsibility is to represent the client (and not the paymaster).