The editor of the Sun, Britain's best-selling daily newspaper, became embroiled in controversy on Thursday after being arrested on suspicion of assaulting her soap star husband.
Rebekah Wade, 37, who recently launched a campaign in her newspaper, the Sun, to stamp out domestic violence, found herself in a police cell in Wandsworth, south London, being subjected to fingerprinting and DNA testing.
Her husband, Ross Kemp, 41, who plays the hard man Grant Mitchell in the BBC's television soap opera EastEnders, called police at 4am yesterday after a row at the couple's south London home and she was arrested.
In a bizarre twist worthy of a scriptwriter for EastEnders, it emerged later that Kemp's onscreen brother, Phil Mitchell, played by Steve McFadden, was also the subject of an alleged assault by his former partner on Thursday.
The story of the soap star and the newspaper editor began on Wednesday evening and involved a cast including David Blunkett, the recently departed Cabinet minister, Rupert Murdoch, the media tycoon, his daughter Elisabeth and the PR gurtthew Freud. Amid febrile rumors -- many promoted by rival tabloid newspapers -- the details of Wade's journey from behind the desk in her office to today's front pages emerged.
Wade, who became the first woman editor of the Sun early in 2003, had spent the day at work overseeing the story of the resignation of Blunkett as work and pensions secretary. Within hours of Blunkett standing down, he was at the Wapping, east London, headquarters of the Sun, being treated to a consolatory drink with Wade, whom he counts as a friend.
Later in the evening she moved on with Kemp to a 20-strong birthday party for Matthew Freud, who is married to Rupert Murdoch's daughter, Elisabeth.
Murdoch, chairman and chief executive of the Sun's parent company, News Corporation, in London for the annual general meeting at BSkyB today, was also said to have attended the party. Insiders said Kemp and Wade, who met 10 years ago, were "in good form." But some time between the end of the birthday party and their arrival home, a row started.
According to sources close to the couple it developed quickly and Kemp rang 999 in a fit of anger -- a call which brought police swiftly to their Battersea home.
When officers arrived they found Kemp with a thick lip and arrested his wife. She had her fingerprints taken and submitted a DNA sample before being locked in a cell to catch up on her sleep.
At the headquarters of News International in Wapping, Murdoch waited in vain for Wade at 8am on Thursday for a scheduled breakfast meeting.
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