By Martin HickmanThe judge at the trial of six Sun journalists for allegedly making illegal payments to public officials today summed up the case against four of the men.At Kingston Crown Court Judge Richard Marks QC summarised the evidence relating to The Sun's former deputy news Ben O'Driscoll, current picture editor John Edwards, former managing editor Graham Dudman, and the former East Anglia reporter John Troup. He summed up the case against the Thames Valley district reporter Jamie Pyatt and the head of news Chris Pharo yesterday. All six of the defendants deny conspiring to commit misconduct.Turning to Mr O'Driscoll, the judge told the jury that his case was that he had received emails about public officials when the newsroom was very busy: "They never had a moment to think and received up to 300 emails a day – and on a busy day up to 1,000 stories.” Mr O'Driscoll had said reporters would exaggerate their sources, saying: "I gave no weight to a journalist's evaluation of a story.” Regarding Mr Pyatt's claims, Mr O'Driscoll had said: "Jamie Pyatt's assertion that Chris Pharo and I were kept updated about the stories he was working on from public officers was untrue. I never read any such emails or took any such calls from him. "I did not know that Jamie Pyatt was paying police officers for information. Paying police officers is wrong, unless the circumstances are exceptional."On Mr Edwards, the judge said the evidence against the picture editor involved only four emails, all from Mr Pyatt, about news stories. The prosecution had argued that Mr Pyatt would not have included the picture editor in emails "were it not for the fact that he was complicit in what was going on, especially so since he was being asked to contribute to non-picture related items.” The Crown had pointed out that there was no record of Mr Edwards ever having refused a request from Mr Pyatt. Mr Edwards' QC, Sasha Wass, had remarked that all the emails requesting payments from public officials were about news stories, not pictures. If Mr Edwards was included in the conspiracy, she pointed out, he had been excluded from 99 per cent of the emails asking for money for public officials.Turning to Mr Dudman, the judge said that his case was that "the suggestion there was a culture of bribery or corruption at the Sun is absolutely untrue.” Mr Dudman had asserted that he had submitted a "false" expenses claim for entertaining a City of London police contact in connection with the Soham inquiry. "There was no BBC contact as appeared in the expense claim - that too was false.” As to an email from Mr Troup saying that his source for a prison hanging was a prison officer, Mr Dudman had said: "I agree its clear Troup was saying his source was a prison officer but I'm not sure I believed him."On Mr Troup – whose case involved only one story, the prison suicide – Judge Marks reminded the jury that Tony Jones, deputy governor of Whitemoor high security prison, had stated that it was difficult to overstate the detrimental effect of information being leaked to the press, saying: "Leaks to the press cause conflict between staff and the prisoners Leaks give rise to suspicion because no-one knows who the source is and who can or cannot be trusted.” Mr Troup's case was that he had not written the story and had not known the source was a public official. He had received many character references, including from an experienced police press officer, who had said he was completely trustworthy, the judge said.