Millionaire arrested over suspected hacking

The millionaire owner of London Wasps rugby club and Wycombe Wanderers Football Club has been arrested over suspected computer hacking by detectives investigating similar alleged offences at the News of the World.

Officers from the Operation Tuleta computer hacking squad held Steve Hayes at the same time as they arrested Graham Freeman, the Surrey-based founder of a Security Consultancy he set up with a former British Army intelligence officer.

The Metropolitan Police said the arrests, which were made under the Computer Misuse Act 1990 and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, were "not directly linked to any news organisation or the activities of journalists".

Hayes, who made his fortune from the sale of his internet loans company, was released on police bail and is now in Dubai. He was arrested at his home in Hertfordshire in February. One of Britain's early internet entrepreneurs, he co-founded Loans.co.uk in 1997 and by 2004 was paying himself a salary of £5.5m a year.