in a libel action against him in January 2019, resulting in Hencke and Graham Wilmer of the Lantern Project paying over £10,000 in compensation for the false allegations. In August 2019, Staffordshire Police confirmed that they were investigating whether Hemming's accuser, Esther Baker, had misled detectives. Other investigations Civil service tax avoidance On 1 February 2012, an investigation by Exaro revealed that the UK's Student Loans Company was paying its chief executive, Ed Lester, through a private company, enabling him to reduce his tax bill by tens of thousands of pounds. The day after the story broke the Chief Secretary of the Treasury, Danny Alexander, was summoned to the House of Commons for an urgent debate. Alexander announced a review of all civil service contracts. Rupert Murdoch In partnership with Channel 4 News, Exaro revealed secretly recorded tapes of News Corporation boss Rupert Murdoch talking to journalists from the News-owned The Sun newspaper, in which he criticised the "incompetent cops" who handled the News of the World phone hacking case and promised to take care of any Sun journalist that had broken the law. Military intervention in Syria In July 2011, a Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) expert told Exaro that the chances of a foreign military incursion into Syria to secure chemical weapons had risen to "more than 50 per cent". That same month, Exaro also reported that hawks in the US government were pressing for military intervention to topple the regime of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. Bribery in defence contracts In August 2012, the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) launched a criminal investigation into bribery allegations in connection with a UK-Saudi Arabian defence contract between the EADS subsidiary GPT Special Project Management, and the Saudi Arabian National Guard. Exaro persistently investigated the allegations, writing more than twenty stories over seven months before the SFO launched its criminal investigation. Criticism Private Eye magazine wrote on 18 September 2015 that "Exaro is struggling to live up to its strapline of 'holding power to account.' For several months the investigative site has published no news at all apart from the latest paedo developments and, slightly bizarrely, items on a corporate insolvency monitoring service it runs alongside its 'news.' The latter centres on the supposed 'Whitehall paedophile ring' and the lurid allegations against former Tory MP Harvey Proctor, and involves magnifying the slightest procedural development and tweeting like mad under the hashtag #VIPaedophile."