James Desborough

38-year-old James Desborough's twitter monica is Jamesisinla; however yesterday he was very much in a south London police station, arrested and helping with inquiries into phone-hacking at the News of The World.  He was hired by the paper in 2005, when Andy Coulson was editor.

In April 2009, under Colin Myler's editorship, he was declared "Showbiz writer of the year" at the British Press Awards, "for stories about Fern Britten's gastric band, Peaches Geldof's divorce and Heather McCartney which were all published in the face of strong official denials".  He told Press Gazette at the time: "A lot of deals are done these days between PRs and papers - but these stories were all old-fashioned journalism where we said: 'We know this to be true, would you like to comment?"  He added: "It's a very difficult time for the whole tabloid market - but we are a big team at the News of the World, we really get on like a house on fire and I hope that comes across in the paper."

In June 2009, James was on his way to LA as "The News of The World's U.S Editor".  There don't seem to be any other staff from the paper based in America. Since that time, he's brought us important stories such as "Tiger had me in the rough", and "Jacko had cocaine in his pants".  He's appeared on the E Entertainment Network as a royal expert for the wedding of William and Kate.

His journalism career prior to joining News International in 2005 is sketchy.  He was, for a time, a news editor with a London-based agency called World Entertainment News Network.  He seems to have resigned after doubts about his role in "quotes" from Sir George Martin about George Harrison's death.

More recently James' byline was on a January 2010 story "Pitts all over", which said that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were consulting lawyers about a divorce settlement.  Their lawyer Keith Schilling brought an action claiming misuse of private information and breach of the 1998 Data Protection Act. The News of the World initially argued that it had acted in good faith, but in the end agreed their story was "false and intrusive" in July 2010, apologised, and paid undisclosed damages.