Lucy Panton

Lucy Panton is a British journalist, a former News of the World crime editor, and the seventh person arrested under Operation Elveden on 15 December 2011.

Panton joined the News of the World in September 2002 from the Sunday People, taking up the position of crime correspondent. She was promoted to crime editor in October 2005.

On 30 October 2010, Panton was asked by News of the World news editor James Mellor to find out more from Metropolitan Police anti-terror head John Yates about the printer cartridge bomb found on a cargo plane at East Midlands Airport the previous day. Mellor wrote in an email to Panton:

John Yates could be crucial here. Have you spoken to him? Really need an excl (exclusive) splash (front page) line so time to call in all those bottles of champagne...

Panton replied: "Noted. Not got hold of him yet still trying." Panton was on maternity leave at the time of the closure of the newspaper in July 2011.

Panton was arrested at her home in Surrey, where she lives with her Scotland Yard-based Metropolitan Police detective husband. The couple have two young children. She was later released on police bail.

During his evidence to the Leveson Inquiry in March 2012, former Metropolitan Police anti-terror head John Yates admitted that he drunk champagne with Panton and other executives from the tabloid newspaper. Yates denied that he gave Panton any favours in return for such hospitality, or that the relationship between the two was that close.