NOTW paid Rebecca Loos 'six figure sum' for Beckham affair story: Ex-chief reporter

London, Dec 13 (ANI): Former News of the World chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck has revealed that English model Rebecca Loos was paid A 'six figure sum' for details of her alleged affair with David Beckham.

In the case of Beckham's alleged four-month affair with Loos, Thurlbeck told the Leveson Inquiry that there was a 'huge public interest' in it going to print.

"He was sponsored left, right and center. He was always promoting himself with his family as a happy modern man. It was a wholesome image that the family cultivated and the public bought into it on a massive scale, and we exposed that as a sham," Thurlbeck said.

According to the Daily Mail, he said that although the average payment to the source of a front-page article was '15,000 to 20,000 pounds', Loos, who was Beckham's personal aasiatnt, was paid 'a six-figure sum'.

Thurlbeck said he spent six weeks in Australia and five to six weeks in Spain in order to validate Loos's claims in 2004.

News International dismissed Thurlbeck in September after he was arrested in April on suspicion of hacking phones.

He told the inquiry he would not talk about the phone hacking episode. Instead he was questioned about the justification of publishing so-called 'kiss and tell' stories. (ANI)