Last  Friday, following the acquittal of four journalists brought to trial for allegedly paying public officials for information, the Director of Public Prosecutions,  Alison Saunders, announced that charges against nine other journalists for similar offences have now been dropped.

The charges were brought following Scotland Yard’s Operation Elveden which many critics referred to as a “witch-hunt” and an attempt by the Government to gag the free press. In other words, it was politically – and possibly even personally – motivated.

Journalists argued that under certain circumstances it is in the public interest to pay public officials for information and this was clearly the view of the jury last Friday.

What particularly grates is the fact that the operation cost the taxpayer an estimated £20 million, money that would have been better spent, for example, on counter terrorism or other serious crime.