elusive moonwalker
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yeah they are on bail. google pics will bring a pic up
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Phone-Hacking Trial:- Tabloids and Murdock
- Thread starter jamba
- Start date
Sorry, I am not familiar with tinypic or other ways to post photos on the forum yet. Brooks has a huge head of curly red hair which she now pulls back in a more modest look since she was arrested and charged. Before, she looked very hip and flamboyant with her hair down. As Elusive suggested, you can look at Google 'images' of her.
New emails revealed between Brooks and Rupert Murdock'son James re her long conversation with Tony Blair and his advice re how to handle the phone-hacking scandal:
"Tony Blair advised Rebekah Brooks on phone-hacking scandal, court hears
Former prime minister suggested setting up 'Hutton style' inquiry, according to email from former News International chief
Read Rebekah Brooks's email to James Murdoch in full (PDF)
Lisa O'Carroll
theguardian.com, Wednesday 19 February 2014 07.45 EST
Tony Blair gave advice to Rebekah Brooks about handling the phone-hacking scandal, according to an email that has emerged at the Old Bailey trial.
Tony Blair advised Rebekah Brooks to launch a "Hutton style" inquiry into phone hacking at the News of the World at the height of the scandal over the issue, according to an email that has emerged at the Old Bailey trial.
The revelation emerged in an email that was read to the jury in the hacking trial on Wednesday, and followed what Brooks said was an hour-long phone call.
According to the email, sent the day after the News of the World's final issue and six days before Brooks was arrested, Blair also told her he was "available" to her and Rupert and James Murdoch as an "unofficial adviser" on a "between us" basis.
The advice was said to have been given on 11 July 2011 and contained in an email she sent at 4.20pm to James Murdoch, the then executive chairman of News International.
According to Brooks's note, Blair advised her to set up an "independent" inquiry, suggesting it could have "outside counsel, Ken Macdonald [the former director of public prosecutions], a great and good type".
He said the inquiry would be "Hutton style" – a reference to Lord Hutton's inquiry into the death of David Kelly – and would "clear" her, but warned that "shortcomings" would have to be accepted as a result of the report.
According to the email the advice was given in an hour-long phone conversation. Blair advised her to "tough up" and not to make any "rash short-term solutions as they only give you long-term headaches." He also told her to "keep strong" and advised her to take "sleeping pills".
Prosecutor Andrew Edis read out the entire email exchange between Brooks and James Murdoch to the jury as part of the formal conclusion of the Crown's case.
After finishing in the email he turned to the jury to simply say "Well, that's that" before moving on to the next piece of evidence.
Brooks told James Murdoch in the email: "I had an hour on the phone to Tony Blair" and then proceeded to outline the points he had allegedly made in the conversation.
"1. Form an independent unit that has an outside junior counsel, Ken Macdonald, a great and good type, a serious forensic criminal barrister, internal counsel, proper fact checkers etc in it. Get them to investigate me and others and publish a Hutton style report," she said.
"2. Publish part one of the report at same time as the police closes its inquiry and clear you and accept short comings and new solutions and process and part two when any trials are over.
"3. Keep strong and definitely sleeping pills. Need to have clear heads and remember no rash short term solutions as they only give you long term headaches.
"4. It will pass. Tough up.
"5. He is available for you, KRM [Rupert Murdoch] and me as an unofficial adviser but needs to be between us," she wrote.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/feb/19/tony-blair-rebekah-brooks-phone-hacking
"Tony Blair advised Rebekah Brooks on phone-hacking scandal, court hears
Former prime minister suggested setting up 'Hutton style' inquiry, according to email from former News International chief
Read Rebekah Brooks's email to James Murdoch in full (PDF)
Lisa O'Carroll
theguardian.com, Wednesday 19 February 2014 07.45 EST
Tony Blair gave advice to Rebekah Brooks about handling the phone-hacking scandal, according to an email that has emerged at the Old Bailey trial.
Tony Blair advised Rebekah Brooks to launch a "Hutton style" inquiry into phone hacking at the News of the World at the height of the scandal over the issue, according to an email that has emerged at the Old Bailey trial.
The revelation emerged in an email that was read to the jury in the hacking trial on Wednesday, and followed what Brooks said was an hour-long phone call.
According to the email, sent the day after the News of the World's final issue and six days before Brooks was arrested, Blair also told her he was "available" to her and Rupert and James Murdoch as an "unofficial adviser" on a "between us" basis.
The advice was said to have been given on 11 July 2011 and contained in an email she sent at 4.20pm to James Murdoch, the then executive chairman of News International.
According to Brooks's note, Blair advised her to set up an "independent" inquiry, suggesting it could have "outside counsel, Ken Macdonald [the former director of public prosecutions], a great and good type".
He said the inquiry would be "Hutton style" – a reference to Lord Hutton's inquiry into the death of David Kelly – and would "clear" her, but warned that "shortcomings" would have to be accepted as a result of the report.
According to the email the advice was given in an hour-long phone conversation. Blair advised her to "tough up" and not to make any "rash short-term solutions as they only give you long-term headaches." He also told her to "keep strong" and advised her to take "sleeping pills".
Prosecutor Andrew Edis read out the entire email exchange between Brooks and James Murdoch to the jury as part of the formal conclusion of the Crown's case.
After finishing in the email he turned to the jury to simply say "Well, that's that" before moving on to the next piece of evidence.
Brooks told James Murdoch in the email: "I had an hour on the phone to Tony Blair" and then proceeded to outline the points he had allegedly made in the conversation.
"1. Form an independent unit that has an outside junior counsel, Ken Macdonald, a great and good type, a serious forensic criminal barrister, internal counsel, proper fact checkers etc in it. Get them to investigate me and others and publish a Hutton style report," she said.
"2. Publish part one of the report at same time as the police closes its inquiry and clear you and accept short comings and new solutions and process and part two when any trials are over.
"3. Keep strong and definitely sleeping pills. Need to have clear heads and remember no rash short term solutions as they only give you long term headaches.
"4. It will pass. Tough up.
"5. He is available for you, KRM [Rupert Murdoch] and me as an unofficial adviser but needs to be between us," she wrote.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/feb/19/tony-blair-rebekah-brooks-phone-hacking
Brooks' defense is now going on. It is too pathetic. She is up there trying to win the jury's sympathy by talking about the misogyny she had to encounter, the competition between departments, how she never met Glen Mulcaire (the phone hacker who was first convicted), and now she is literally crying on the stand about her sad personal life--not being able to have children etc. She had to leave the courtroom she was so upset. Give me a break--what about the people whose lives she made hell including MJ? the damage her rags did to the social fabric, to civility, to human kindness? They just promoted sex, gossip, bullying, scandal, etc.
She also manages to get this in: "We have to be careful to ensure that everything we do is inside the law." HAHAHAHAHAHA. I hope they throw her sorry azz in jail.
She also manages to get this in: "We have to be careful to ensure that everything we do is inside the law." HAHAHAHAHAHA. I hope they throw her sorry azz in jail.
Petrarose
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Jamba something I am not getting: Why would Blair tell her to do this independent inquiry when it was Brooks herself you orchestrated the hacking protocol? She already knew about the hacking since she was a part of it. Is it that Blair is pretending that Brooks had nothing to do with this protocol?
Oh oh I see she is using that old strategy women have used since olden times--the tears, pointing out their sex, their horrible childhood background.
Oh oh I see she is using that old strategy women have used since olden times--the tears, pointing out their sex, their horrible childhood background.
Bubs
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Phone-hacking trial: Rebekah Brooks in tears over 'car crash' private life
Brooks detailed three periods of 'physical intimacy' with Andy Coulson as she described her relationships with men
Rebekah Brooks broke off her evidence in tears as her lawyer invited her to discuss sensitive details of her private life in open court at the Old Bailey on Friday.
After a short break, she went on to describe her attempts to have children using fertility treatments, finally culminating in the surrogate birth of her daughter, Scarlett, and to describe the detail of her relationships with men, including three periods of "physical intimacy" with Andy Coulson. "My personal life – as everyone now knows – has been a bit of a car crash for many years," she told the jury.
On her second day in the witness box at the phone-hacking trial, she also talked about her role as a "hands-on editor", running the News of the World campaign to change the law on sex offenders after the murder of Sarah Payne in July 2000 and navigating the controversy over an undercover operation to expose the business activities of the Countess of Wessex.
Her barrister, Jonathan Laidlaw QC, told her he was "sorry to have to do this" before asking her a series of questions about her private life. As she described her relationship with the TV actor Ross Kemp, she said that after a 12-month separation, they had come back together in 2001 and "we brought up the subject of maybe living together, of taking it more seriously and buying a house and getting married and having children …"
Her voice then faltered and she asked the judge for a break before leaving the courtroom in tears. When she returned 10 minutes later, she told the jury that in mid-2001, she had "a scare" and ended up in hospital and later started fertility treatment. She married Kemp in June 2002 but, after she was made editor of the Sun in January 2003, their relationship had become more difficult.
"We were both working incredibly long hours in completely different industries," she said. "The war in Iraq started pretty quickly after I became editor and we were doing 4am, 5am editions, and I and my senior team moved into a hotel next door to Wapping, where we lived … So probably 2003 was a lost year for us. Basically, life was put on hold."
Laidlaw then asked her about her relationship with Andy Coulson. Earlier in the trial, the jury were given a letter, written by Brooks to Coulson in February 2004. The crown claimed that it revealed that they had been having an affair for six years and that they trusted each other with secrets. "The fact is that you are my best friend," she wrote. "I tell you everything. I confide in you. I seek your advice." The crown told the jury that the letter made it "simply incredible" that Brooks had not known about the hacking of Milly Dowler's phone in April 2002, when Coulson was editing the News of the World while Brooks was on holiday.
On Friday Brooks said she first met Coulson in 1995 or 1996 and they had become "extremely good friends".Laidlaw asked her if that had involved "physical intimacy". Brooks replied: "No, not then … It wasn't until 1998 when Andy and I became close."
That period in their relationship ended, she said, then resumed after her marriage to Kemp became troubled in 2003. "I'm sure if Ross was here, he'd say our whole relationship was a bit like a rollercoaster. Sometimes it was good. Sometimes it wasn't so." She and Coulson had a third "period of intimacy" in 2006, she said.
Turning to her letter to Coulson which, the jury have been told, police found on one of her laptops, she said: "I don't even think I finished it. I don't know if anyone has been in this situation, but at a time of hurt, you come home and have a few glasses of wine and get on the computer. That's what I did. I wrote my feelings down at that time. These are my thoughts really to myself, but obviously I wrote it in a letter form with the intention of finishing it and maybe sending it. I saw it again when the police found it and produced it."
Laidlaw asked her to comment on the claim that she had a six-year affair with Coulson. "First of all, it isn't true. I know that's what the police and the prosecution say having analysed the letter. Obviously at the time I wrote this, I was in a great deal of emotional anguish as I think you can tell from the letter … The six-year period was not referring back to 1998. Obviously I have read it a lot since the police found it. I think that's what I was referring to … Andy and I were incredibly close during that time, and that comes across as well."
Laidlaw asked if the affair had any impact on her friendship with Coulson. She said: "I think any affair is by its very nature dysfunctional in some ways. I think it certainly added a complexity to what was a very good friendship … It's very easy to blame work but the hours were long and hard, you get thrown together. I know it was wrong and it shouldn't have happened, but it did."
She said her relationships with Kemp and Coulson "weren't meant to be". After separating from Kemp in late 2005, she met her current husband, Charlie Brooks, at the beginning of March 2007. "I think it's fair to say we both knew very quickly that we wanted to be together. I told Charlie obviously about the failed fertility treatment in the past and said that if we did get together and he wanted children, I probably wouldn't be the right person." He told her he wanted to get married anyway and they consulted a specialist, Dr Mohammed Taranissi, who suggested surrogate parenthood.
They researched it and spoke to others who had been through it. "It's a big thing to do," she told the jury. "So, my mum was out shopping in Warrington one day and she bumped into my cousin who I was very close to at school." They started to talk about surrogacy, and the cousin volunteered to carry Brooks's baby, born in January 2012.
Brooks went on to describe her 10-year campaign to change the law after the murder of Sarah Payne. She told the court she had made mistakes, publishing details of one convicted paedophile – which provoked "a riot of sorts" in Portsmouth – and wrongly including in a gallery of predatory paedophiles a teacher who had an affair with an underage pupil. But, she said, the campaign had succeeded in closing a series of loopholes in sexual offences legislation and giving the public the right to ask police for information about convicted paedophiles in their area.
She also recalled how she asked her undercover specialist, Mazher Mahmood, to investigate the Countess of Wessex by posing as a "fake sheikh". This was extremely costly, she said, because "he would live the life of a true sheikh with a Bentley and a penthouse suite which he always told me was imperative." In the event, she said, she had agreed with Buckingham Palace that she would not publish the story if the countess gave her an interview. However, a week later, other newspapers had published inaccurate accounts of the countess's comments to the fake sheikh and so she had decided to publish the story after all. In an internal email at the time, she had warned other executives that "all our entrapment and subterfuge must be justified 110%. We have to be careful to ensure that everything we do is inside the law".
Brooks denies conspiring to intercept voicemail, conspiring to commit misconduct in public office and two counts of conspiring to pervert the course of justice. The trial continues.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...rial-rebekah-brooks-private-life-andy-coulson
Brooks detailed three periods of 'physical intimacy' with Andy Coulson as she described her relationships with men
Rebekah Brooks broke off her evidence in tears as her lawyer invited her to discuss sensitive details of her private life in open court at the Old Bailey on Friday.
After a short break, she went on to describe her attempts to have children using fertility treatments, finally culminating in the surrogate birth of her daughter, Scarlett, and to describe the detail of her relationships with men, including three periods of "physical intimacy" with Andy Coulson. "My personal life – as everyone now knows – has been a bit of a car crash for many years," she told the jury.
On her second day in the witness box at the phone-hacking trial, she also talked about her role as a "hands-on editor", running the News of the World campaign to change the law on sex offenders after the murder of Sarah Payne in July 2000 and navigating the controversy over an undercover operation to expose the business activities of the Countess of Wessex.
Her barrister, Jonathan Laidlaw QC, told her he was "sorry to have to do this" before asking her a series of questions about her private life. As she described her relationship with the TV actor Ross Kemp, she said that after a 12-month separation, they had come back together in 2001 and "we brought up the subject of maybe living together, of taking it more seriously and buying a house and getting married and having children …"
Her voice then faltered and she asked the judge for a break before leaving the courtroom in tears. When she returned 10 minutes later, she told the jury that in mid-2001, she had "a scare" and ended up in hospital and later started fertility treatment. She married Kemp in June 2002 but, after she was made editor of the Sun in January 2003, their relationship had become more difficult.
"We were both working incredibly long hours in completely different industries," she said. "The war in Iraq started pretty quickly after I became editor and we were doing 4am, 5am editions, and I and my senior team moved into a hotel next door to Wapping, where we lived … So probably 2003 was a lost year for us. Basically, life was put on hold."
Laidlaw then asked her about her relationship with Andy Coulson. Earlier in the trial, the jury were given a letter, written by Brooks to Coulson in February 2004. The crown claimed that it revealed that they had been having an affair for six years and that they trusted each other with secrets. "The fact is that you are my best friend," she wrote. "I tell you everything. I confide in you. I seek your advice." The crown told the jury that the letter made it "simply incredible" that Brooks had not known about the hacking of Milly Dowler's phone in April 2002, when Coulson was editing the News of the World while Brooks was on holiday.
On Friday Brooks said she first met Coulson in 1995 or 1996 and they had become "extremely good friends".Laidlaw asked her if that had involved "physical intimacy". Brooks replied: "No, not then … It wasn't until 1998 when Andy and I became close."
That period in their relationship ended, she said, then resumed after her marriage to Kemp became troubled in 2003. "I'm sure if Ross was here, he'd say our whole relationship was a bit like a rollercoaster. Sometimes it was good. Sometimes it wasn't so." She and Coulson had a third "period of intimacy" in 2006, she said.
Turning to her letter to Coulson which, the jury have been told, police found on one of her laptops, she said: "I don't even think I finished it. I don't know if anyone has been in this situation, but at a time of hurt, you come home and have a few glasses of wine and get on the computer. That's what I did. I wrote my feelings down at that time. These are my thoughts really to myself, but obviously I wrote it in a letter form with the intention of finishing it and maybe sending it. I saw it again when the police found it and produced it."
Laidlaw asked her to comment on the claim that she had a six-year affair with Coulson. "First of all, it isn't true. I know that's what the police and the prosecution say having analysed the letter. Obviously at the time I wrote this, I was in a great deal of emotional anguish as I think you can tell from the letter … The six-year period was not referring back to 1998. Obviously I have read it a lot since the police found it. I think that's what I was referring to … Andy and I were incredibly close during that time, and that comes across as well."
Laidlaw asked if the affair had any impact on her friendship with Coulson. She said: "I think any affair is by its very nature dysfunctional in some ways. I think it certainly added a complexity to what was a very good friendship … It's very easy to blame work but the hours were long and hard, you get thrown together. I know it was wrong and it shouldn't have happened, but it did."
She said her relationships with Kemp and Coulson "weren't meant to be". After separating from Kemp in late 2005, she met her current husband, Charlie Brooks, at the beginning of March 2007. "I think it's fair to say we both knew very quickly that we wanted to be together. I told Charlie obviously about the failed fertility treatment in the past and said that if we did get together and he wanted children, I probably wouldn't be the right person." He told her he wanted to get married anyway and they consulted a specialist, Dr Mohammed Taranissi, who suggested surrogate parenthood.
They researched it and spoke to others who had been through it. "It's a big thing to do," she told the jury. "So, my mum was out shopping in Warrington one day and she bumped into my cousin who I was very close to at school." They started to talk about surrogacy, and the cousin volunteered to carry Brooks's baby, born in January 2012.
Brooks went on to describe her 10-year campaign to change the law after the murder of Sarah Payne. She told the court she had made mistakes, publishing details of one convicted paedophile – which provoked "a riot of sorts" in Portsmouth – and wrongly including in a gallery of predatory paedophiles a teacher who had an affair with an underage pupil. But, she said, the campaign had succeeded in closing a series of loopholes in sexual offences legislation and giving the public the right to ask police for information about convicted paedophiles in their area.
She also recalled how she asked her undercover specialist, Mazher Mahmood, to investigate the Countess of Wessex by posing as a "fake sheikh". This was extremely costly, she said, because "he would live the life of a true sheikh with a Bentley and a penthouse suite which he always told me was imperative." In the event, she said, she had agreed with Buckingham Palace that she would not publish the story if the countess gave her an interview. However, a week later, other newspapers had published inaccurate accounts of the countess's comments to the fake sheikh and so she had decided to publish the story after all. In an internal email at the time, she had warned other executives that "all our entrapment and subterfuge must be justified 110%. We have to be careful to ensure that everything we do is inside the law".
Brooks denies conspiring to intercept voicemail, conspiring to commit misconduct in public office and two counts of conspiring to pervert the course of justice. The trial continues.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...rial-rebekah-brooks-private-life-andy-coulson
Bubs
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Seemingly it is a little bit of both. She is laying ground work for her defence that she was only doing what she was doing because her personal life was such a mess, Yeah, makes sense:doh:
I don't feel pity for her and her sorry arse should be thrown in the jail.
Well, the prosecution is trying to prove that she and the other charged people knew about the extensive phone-hacking that was modus operandi for decades, but of course she is denying it and now making her defense. I think Tony Blair did not have a clue as to how deep the phone hacking went, and it involved hacking the phones of the royal family and their staff, families of soldiers, crime victims, celebs, etc, and that the police were being paid off as well. So the corruption went all the way through the press, the police, the government. Andy Coulson actually gets hired by Prime Minister Cameron!! Andy Coulson now on trial, mind you.
I posted a few videos back in the thread to show how far the Murdock slimefest spread throughout the globe, including of course in USA. This is a poison spreading throughout the globe and making people more and more ignorant by focusing on scandal and celebrity and general slime.
Brooks testified that she paid 250K to get a story from the person who gave Hugh Grant a blow job!!! This is what they are doing 'in the public interest.' Can you imagine what they paid people to lie about MJ if they paid 250K re Hugh Grant??? The amount of $$ is staggering--Murdock just bought a $57M 4-floor penthouse suite in NYC. This is what he does with money earned from spreading slime everywhere.
Last edited:
More bs from Brooks:
Rebekah Brooks: I did not know hacking was illegal
Ex-editor denies she knew of Milly Dowler message interception, saying 'I can't see it would have been a useful thing to do'
Nick Davies
The Guardian, Tuesday 25 February 2014 15.40 EST
Rebekah Brooks on Tuesday told an Old Bailey jury she had not been involved in the hacking of Milly Dowler's voicemail and, as editor of the News of the World, had not been told that some of her staff believed they had found the missing girl alive and well three weeks after she disappeared.
On her fourth day in the witness box, Brooks also said that during her editorship of the News of the World, she had not realised it was illegal to intercept voicemail. She had never sanctioned it, she said. "I can't see that it would have been a particularly useful thing to do," she added.
The jury in the phone-hacking trial has heard that Milly Dowler vanished on the afternoon of Thursday 21 March 2002 and that on Wednesday 10 April the then news editor of the News of the World, Neville Thurlbeck, commissioned the paper's specialist phone-hacker, Glenn Mulcaire, to access her phone messages.
Brooks's barrister, Jonathan Laidlaw QC, asked her: "Did you have anything to do with Neville Thurlbeck's tasking of Glenn Mulcaire and his accessing of Milly Dowler's voicemail?"
"No," she replied.
"Did you at the time know anything about that, before it happened?"
"No."
"After it happened?"
"No."
The jury has heard that Mulcaire intercepted a message that appeared to reveal that the missing Surrey schoolgirl had been offered a job interview at a factory in Telford, Shropshire and that, without informing the police who were searching for her, Thurlbeck had sent a team of reporters to Telford to try to find her.
Brooks, who was on holiday in Dubai at the time, said she had stayed in contact with the paper which was edited in her absence by her deputy, Andy Coulson.
But she told the court she could not recall having discussed the missing girl that week: "I think I would remember if Andy or whoever on the paper had said: 'We've found Milly Dowler' … I don't remember having any discussions about her disappearance while I was away."
She said that if she had heard about the Telford story, she would have told her staff to contact police. "It's the parents. You want to tell them immediately via the police, as soon as possible. That would have been the right thing to do."
Laidlaw asked Brooks to comment on the evidence of an earlier witness, William Hennessy, who told the court he happened to meet her in Dubai that week and recalled her making a lot of phone calls and, on one occasion, walking away because she had to talk to someone about "the missing Surrey girl".
She said: "I don't particularly remember saying that. I don't actually remember meeting Mr Hennessy that clearly … Being forced to remember something so far ago, you do try and remember the details but I just don't particularly remember meeting him or saying that, but it's possible that I did."
Brooks said she had not seen the early editions of the News of the World on Sunday 14 April, which quoted several voicemail messages from the missing girl's phone. She said she had seen only a later edition, in which the story had been cut down. During the following week, she said, she had not been aware that her managing editor, Stuart Kuttner, sent an email to Surrey police in which, the court has heard, he challenged them to confirm that Milly Dowler had been offered a job in Telford and quoted a voicemail from her phone.Earlier, Brooks told the jury that in the late 1990s she had heard that it was possible to access other people's voicemail. "There was certainly some publicity about it, about the flaw in the system." Looking back, she could not see how it would have helped the News of the World on any of the big campaigns or stories they had run under her editorship, she said, although it might have helped other departments with "celebrity tittle tattle."
"No one – no desk head, no journalist – ever came to me and said 'We are working on such and such story but we need to access voicemail; or asked for me to sanction it.'" She said she had not realised that it would have been a breach of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. She was pretty sure, she added, that she had not even heard of the act. She added: "Even though I didn't know it was illegal, I still would have felt it was absolutely in the category of a serious breach of privacy."
Brooks denies one count of conspiring to intercept voicemail. The trial continues.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/feb/25/rebekah-brooks-hacking-dowler-illegal
Rebekah Brooks: I did not know hacking was illegal
Ex-editor denies she knew of Milly Dowler message interception, saying 'I can't see it would have been a useful thing to do'
Nick Davies
The Guardian, Tuesday 25 February 2014 15.40 EST
Rebekah Brooks on Tuesday told an Old Bailey jury she had not been involved in the hacking of Milly Dowler's voicemail and, as editor of the News of the World, had not been told that some of her staff believed they had found the missing girl alive and well three weeks after she disappeared.
On her fourth day in the witness box, Brooks also said that during her editorship of the News of the World, she had not realised it was illegal to intercept voicemail. She had never sanctioned it, she said. "I can't see that it would have been a particularly useful thing to do," she added.
The jury in the phone-hacking trial has heard that Milly Dowler vanished on the afternoon of Thursday 21 March 2002 and that on Wednesday 10 April the then news editor of the News of the World, Neville Thurlbeck, commissioned the paper's specialist phone-hacker, Glenn Mulcaire, to access her phone messages.
Brooks's barrister, Jonathan Laidlaw QC, asked her: "Did you have anything to do with Neville Thurlbeck's tasking of Glenn Mulcaire and his accessing of Milly Dowler's voicemail?"
"No," she replied.
"Did you at the time know anything about that, before it happened?"
"No."
"After it happened?"
"No."
The jury has heard that Mulcaire intercepted a message that appeared to reveal that the missing Surrey schoolgirl had been offered a job interview at a factory in Telford, Shropshire and that, without informing the police who were searching for her, Thurlbeck had sent a team of reporters to Telford to try to find her.
Brooks, who was on holiday in Dubai at the time, said she had stayed in contact with the paper which was edited in her absence by her deputy, Andy Coulson.
But she told the court she could not recall having discussed the missing girl that week: "I think I would remember if Andy or whoever on the paper had said: 'We've found Milly Dowler' … I don't remember having any discussions about her disappearance while I was away."
She said that if she had heard about the Telford story, she would have told her staff to contact police. "It's the parents. You want to tell them immediately via the police, as soon as possible. That would have been the right thing to do."
Laidlaw asked Brooks to comment on the evidence of an earlier witness, William Hennessy, who told the court he happened to meet her in Dubai that week and recalled her making a lot of phone calls and, on one occasion, walking away because she had to talk to someone about "the missing Surrey girl".
She said: "I don't particularly remember saying that. I don't actually remember meeting Mr Hennessy that clearly … Being forced to remember something so far ago, you do try and remember the details but I just don't particularly remember meeting him or saying that, but it's possible that I did."
Brooks said she had not seen the early editions of the News of the World on Sunday 14 April, which quoted several voicemail messages from the missing girl's phone. She said she had seen only a later edition, in which the story had been cut down. During the following week, she said, she had not been aware that her managing editor, Stuart Kuttner, sent an email to Surrey police in which, the court has heard, he challenged them to confirm that Milly Dowler had been offered a job in Telford and quoted a voicemail from her phone.Earlier, Brooks told the jury that in the late 1990s she had heard that it was possible to access other people's voicemail. "There was certainly some publicity about it, about the flaw in the system." Looking back, she could not see how it would have helped the News of the World on any of the big campaigns or stories they had run under her editorship, she said, although it might have helped other departments with "celebrity tittle tattle."
"No one – no desk head, no journalist – ever came to me and said 'We are working on such and such story but we need to access voicemail; or asked for me to sanction it.'" She said she had not realised that it would have been a breach of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. She was pretty sure, she added, that she had not even heard of the act. She added: "Even though I didn't know it was illegal, I still would have felt it was absolutely in the category of a serious breach of privacy."
Brooks denies one count of conspiring to intercept voicemail. The trial continues.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/feb/25/rebekah-brooks-hacking-dowler-illegal
elusive moonwalker
Guests
what a lieing piece of crap. didnt know phone hacking was illegal. purlease i guess she thinks the pope is jewish aswell.
Bubs
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If her own phone was hacked, she would have known it was illegal :doh:
A bit like Pier Morgan (used to be editor for The Sun,Daily Mirror and NOTW), who got sacked from CNN, is complaining "untruths" written about him :scratch:
What goes around, comes around and I'm loving it.
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Bubs
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Re Brooks claiming she didn't know phone-hacking was illegal--totally mind-boggling. How could you NOT KNOW that going into someone's PRIVATE phone messages on their PRIVATE phone and then putting that info in a newspaper was NOT illegal?? That right there tells me how completely corrupt she and the others at those tabs are. Why is it NOT illegal to do that with a mobile phone just the same as for a stationary phone in someone's house. Is she freaking nuts???
Yes, Piers was questioned by the police re his knowledge of phone hacking. IMO he also needs to be charged, but the thing is the tabs were so loaded with $$ to pay people off and so totally corrupted themselves (thanks, Rupert) that they were able to ditch, destroy, cover up the evidence so it is now hard to prove a case against them.
Agree with Bubs that it would be nice to see DD get a major comeuppance too a la Bashir and Piers and R.Brooks. Why isn't Murdock himself charged as well? Would like so much to see his sorry azz behind bars. R.Brooks was his go-to gal, so he HAD to have known what was going on, not to mention what goes on in his other rags (NYPost, etc.). Wake-up, Rupert!!! Stop sliming the world with your 'filthy press.'
Yes, Piers was questioned by the police re his knowledge of phone hacking. IMO he also needs to be charged, but the thing is the tabs were so loaded with $$ to pay people off and so totally corrupted themselves (thanks, Rupert) that they were able to ditch, destroy, cover up the evidence so it is now hard to prove a case against them.
Agree with Bubs that it would be nice to see DD get a major comeuppance too a la Bashir and Piers and R.Brooks. Why isn't Murdock himself charged as well? Would like so much to see his sorry azz behind bars. R.Brooks was his go-to gal, so he HAD to have known what was going on, not to mention what goes on in his other rags (NYPost, etc.). Wake-up, Rupert!!! Stop sliming the world with your 'filthy press.'
Petrarose
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According to Brooks "She said that if she had heard about the Telford story, she would have told her staff to contact police. "It's the parents. You want to tell them immediately via the police, as soon as possible. That would have been the right thing to do."
^^Oh please.....what a caring person.
Bubs These networks hire these people from & with questionable backgrounds like Bashir and Morgan and then after they cause havoc, the network can them. How did the network think these types of people would act and conduct business once they hired them--A leopard cannot change its spots.
Jamba while I was in the bus either last month or earlier this month, my eyes got a glimpse of someone with a newspaper and I am sure on the cover it read something like Murdock had a heart attack in jail. Was murdock arrested or something?
^^Oh please.....what a caring person.
Bubs These networks hire these people from & with questionable backgrounds like Bashir and Morgan and then after they cause havoc, the network can them. How did the network think these types of people would act and conduct business once they hired them--A leopard cannot change its spots.
Jamba while I was in the bus either last month or earlier this month, my eyes got a glimpse of someone with a newspaper and I am sure on the cover it read something like Murdock had a heart attack in jail. Was murdock arrested or something?
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Petrarose;3965465 said:
Impossible that Murdock was in jail, even tho' he should be. I am not sure what the headline you read was--maybe a different Murdock?
I checked to see if there was news about Rupert and found this:
"According to the tax return it filed for the 2011 calendar year, the U.S. arm of Blair's Faith Foundation received a $100,000 contribution from News Corp. that year, just as Blair was increasingly involving himself in the personal and professional affairs of the News Corp. executives in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal.
A day after News of the World printed its last edition, according emails entered into evidence in Brook's ongoing criminal trial, Blair got in touch with the News Corp. executive to offer her, Rupert, and his son James advice on a "between us" basis. He counseled Brooks to "keep strong" and "take sleeping pills." She was arrested six days later.
While Blair was bestowing this wisdom upon Brooks, The Tony Blair Faith Foundation U.S. — dedicated to "[providing] leaders with the knowledge and analysis to understand the impact and complexity of religion in the world" — was collecting donations from News Corp., to the tune of $100,000 in 2011. There were no donations from News Corp. in the year before that, according to donor rolls acquired by Gawker."
http://gawker.com/rupert-murdoch-gave-tony-blair-100-000-then-blair-fuc-1531707995
In other words, Gawker claims that Tony Blair had a sexual relationship with Murdock's wife--Wendi Deng--and so Rupert divorced her!! (This could be false but that's what Gawker is saying.)
Oh, what a world!
edit: FYI Wendi Deng has denied this rumor that she had an affair w. Blair.
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Bubs
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I hope jury don't buy her lies and put her behind the bars.
Rupert himself is too much protected, and it is totally possible that he holds some informations of people in the government that they would be too scared to do anything to him in case he lets is all lose.
Hopefully he gets syphilis or something
I hope jury don't buy her lies and put her behind the bars.
Rupert himself is too much protected, and it is totally possible that he holds some informations of people in the government that they would be too scared to do anything to him in case he lets is all lose.
Hopefully he gets syphilis or something
From the looks of him, he's already had it!!
I wonder if the prosecution lawyer will get a cross-examination time, the way it is in USA. The British system is different of course--for one thing no one can comment (in UK) in the newspapers on the trial while in progress, so different from here when people have their minds made up and fight online before the jury decides.
More R. Brooks bs:
"Rebekah Brooks was asked on Friday to explain the legality of a series of contacts between her journalists at the Sun and sources connected to the police, military and MI5.
The jury in the phone-hacking trial were shown an email from April 2006, in which a reporter asked her to authorise a payment to a source who had provided a story involving the royal mayor of Tetbury who was leaving his wife.
The reporter wrote: "I would like to keep it anonymous because the contact is a serving police officer. He has supplied us with numerous other tips in the past." The reporter asked that the payment be made in cash through a branch of the Thomas Cook travel agency.
Questioned by her barrister, Jonathan Laidlaw QC, Brooks said: "Obviously, a police officer selling information directly associated with their duty, I was absolutely aware of the illegality."
She said such a payment could be justified in the public interest only with a high threshold, such as the exposure of high-level police corruption.
She continued: "But, of course, police officers are just as likely to come across a story that comes about in their daily lives. If a copper is living next door to the royal mayor of Tetbury wife-swapping situation, it's not in the course of his duty. People may have an issue with it, but it's not – as far as I'm concerned – against the law for me to authorise it."
She was shown another email, dated February 2006, in which the Sun's crime editor, Mike Sullivan, said a police source had suggested the then home secretary, Charles Clarke, had given the News of the World a story about a police cover-up and then asked her to authorise a payment of £500 for a source who had helped on stories about Kate Moss's drug dealer and about a woman who had hired a hitman who turned out to be a police officer. Sullivan added: "With respect, I'm not sure it's wise putting this kind of thing down on emails where there is a permanent record."
Brooks told the court that Sullivan had been crime editor for a long time and received "a lot of information from serving police officers but also not necessarily – I would say rarely – for money".
She said that the Sun had a pretty good relationship with Scotland Yard, which included sponsoring its football team. Turning to the email, she said: "Nothing would suggest to me that this was payment going to a serving officer. I would probably have read it and thought it was one of Mike's contacts – crime journalists, ex-crime journalists, all with contacts at the Yard."
Asked to explain Sullivan's final line about it being unwise to record "this kind of thing" in an email, she told the jury that that could refer to writing about sources. "If you want to see something sinister, you could read it that he didn't want this payment to be discussed on email. But it could be that you shouldn't be naming a source for the police cover-up in email."
She added: "It sounds a little bit chippy, the end. It could be that he just didn't like to be questioned about a payment for one of his sources."
Another email, dated April 2008, asked her to authorise a payment of £1,000 for a picture of an army officer who had been involved in a road accident which had killed a police officer: "We need to pay in cash as the guy who got us the picture works at Sandhurst and went into Sandhurst and took the picture off the wall so he doesn't want it to be traced back to him." Brooks said she did not remember the email but said that it did not necessarily refer to a public official.
On another occasion, in July 2005, an executive emailed her that "a tipster who says he's a policeman" had told the news desk that the singer George Michael had been arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence of drugs and had then been released without charge. Brooks said this had nothing to do with money. "It isn't unusual, in my experience, for a police officer to ring up the paper. He is clearly not doing so for money."
Questioned about an email from a senior journalist in which he referred to "my man in Five", Brooks said she understood that that referred to a source in MI5. She told the court that at some point, MI5 and MI6 had decided to be "a little bit more open" with the media and that she had attended briefings with both services.
She went on to describe an incident in March 1998 when, as deputy editor of the Sun, she had been called in to Downing Street to meet representatives of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ after a source had told them that all ports had been alerted to watch for anthrax being smuggled into the country on the orders of Saddam Hussein. She said they had asked her not to publish the story but she had argued that the public had a right to know about the threat. On the basis that this was justified by high public interest, she had authorised a payment to the source, a chief petty officer who subsequently had been arrested and prosecuted for breaking the Official Secrets Act.
She said she had been offered the chance to pay a source for details of the "MPs' expenses fraud" in the spring of 2009 but had found it a very difficult decision. "In terms of error of judgment, I think this is probably quite high on my list. I thought about it too long. I drove my news team crazy with my indecision." In the end, the information had been bought by the Daily Telegraph who had done a brilliant job with it. "It was quite embarrassing that we didn't get it," she said.
Brooks denies conspiring to commit misconduct in public office.
The trial continues."
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/feb/28/rebekah-brooks-payments-police-phone-hacking-trial
"Rebekah Brooks was asked on Friday to explain the legality of a series of contacts between her journalists at the Sun and sources connected to the police, military and MI5.
The jury in the phone-hacking trial were shown an email from April 2006, in which a reporter asked her to authorise a payment to a source who had provided a story involving the royal mayor of Tetbury who was leaving his wife.
The reporter wrote: "I would like to keep it anonymous because the contact is a serving police officer. He has supplied us with numerous other tips in the past." The reporter asked that the payment be made in cash through a branch of the Thomas Cook travel agency.
Questioned by her barrister, Jonathan Laidlaw QC, Brooks said: "Obviously, a police officer selling information directly associated with their duty, I was absolutely aware of the illegality."
She said such a payment could be justified in the public interest only with a high threshold, such as the exposure of high-level police corruption.
She continued: "But, of course, police officers are just as likely to come across a story that comes about in their daily lives. If a copper is living next door to the royal mayor of Tetbury wife-swapping situation, it's not in the course of his duty. People may have an issue with it, but it's not – as far as I'm concerned – against the law for me to authorise it."
She was shown another email, dated February 2006, in which the Sun's crime editor, Mike Sullivan, said a police source had suggested the then home secretary, Charles Clarke, had given the News of the World a story about a police cover-up and then asked her to authorise a payment of £500 for a source who had helped on stories about Kate Moss's drug dealer and about a woman who had hired a hitman who turned out to be a police officer. Sullivan added: "With respect, I'm not sure it's wise putting this kind of thing down on emails where there is a permanent record."
Brooks told the court that Sullivan had been crime editor for a long time and received "a lot of information from serving police officers but also not necessarily – I would say rarely – for money".
She said that the Sun had a pretty good relationship with Scotland Yard, which included sponsoring its football team. Turning to the email, she said: "Nothing would suggest to me that this was payment going to a serving officer. I would probably have read it and thought it was one of Mike's contacts – crime journalists, ex-crime journalists, all with contacts at the Yard."
Asked to explain Sullivan's final line about it being unwise to record "this kind of thing" in an email, she told the jury that that could refer to writing about sources. "If you want to see something sinister, you could read it that he didn't want this payment to be discussed on email. But it could be that you shouldn't be naming a source for the police cover-up in email."
She added: "It sounds a little bit chippy, the end. It could be that he just didn't like to be questioned about a payment for one of his sources."
Another email, dated April 2008, asked her to authorise a payment of £1,000 for a picture of an army officer who had been involved in a road accident which had killed a police officer: "We need to pay in cash as the guy who got us the picture works at Sandhurst and went into Sandhurst and took the picture off the wall so he doesn't want it to be traced back to him." Brooks said she did not remember the email but said that it did not necessarily refer to a public official.
On another occasion, in July 2005, an executive emailed her that "a tipster who says he's a policeman" had told the news desk that the singer George Michael had been arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence of drugs and had then been released without charge. Brooks said this had nothing to do with money. "It isn't unusual, in my experience, for a police officer to ring up the paper. He is clearly not doing so for money."
Questioned about an email from a senior journalist in which he referred to "my man in Five", Brooks said she understood that that referred to a source in MI5. She told the court that at some point, MI5 and MI6 had decided to be "a little bit more open" with the media and that she had attended briefings with both services.
She went on to describe an incident in March 1998 when, as deputy editor of the Sun, she had been called in to Downing Street to meet representatives of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ after a source had told them that all ports had been alerted to watch for anthrax being smuggled into the country on the orders of Saddam Hussein. She said they had asked her not to publish the story but she had argued that the public had a right to know about the threat. On the basis that this was justified by high public interest, she had authorised a payment to the source, a chief petty officer who subsequently had been arrested and prosecuted for breaking the Official Secrets Act.
She said she had been offered the chance to pay a source for details of the "MPs' expenses fraud" in the spring of 2009 but had found it a very difficult decision. "In terms of error of judgment, I think this is probably quite high on my list. I thought about it too long. I drove my news team crazy with my indecision." In the end, the information had been bought by the Daily Telegraph who had done a brilliant job with it. "It was quite embarrassing that we didn't get it," she said.
Brooks denies conspiring to commit misconduct in public office.
The trial continues."
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/feb/28/rebekah-brooks-payments-police-phone-hacking-trial
Petrarose
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She said such a payment could be justified in the public interest only with a high threshold, such as the exposure of high-level police corruption.
^^They always want to expose other people's corruption but what about their corruption!!
Police officers give a lot of information out and that is something that has been going on for a long time now. Also, these types of publications and other corrupt entities love to find connections to politicians, the police and those in power so that they use them for information and also as a form of protection. Then, they tend to find out dirt about these same people and not use it but let them know they have it. All this is done so that these people in power will turn a blind eye to the corrupted activities of the publications. So it is no surprise that people like Murdock and these tabloids know such powerful people in government and the police force and give them money for their charities--all to get a deeper hold on them. They have a lot in common with the mob.
^^They always want to expose other people's corruption but what about their corruption!!
Police officers give a lot of information out and that is something that has been going on for a long time now. Also, these types of publications and other corrupt entities love to find connections to politicians, the police and those in power so that they use them for information and also as a form of protection. Then, they tend to find out dirt about these same people and not use it but let them know they have it. All this is done so that these people in power will turn a blind eye to the corrupted activities of the publications. So it is no surprise that people like Murdock and these tabloids know such powerful people in government and the police force and give them money for their charities--all to get a deeper hold on them. They have a lot in common with the mob.
Agree so much with your post re how the media worms into the power/money system. ( Politicians cozy up to $$ too--Tony Blair, who apparently did not own property before he ran for office, now has a couple of mansions. It happens here too of course--most of the congresspeople are now millionaires or on their way.)
Yes, excellent point--if they wanted to expose corruption, they could have started with themselves!! That got a pass while they went after people like MJ.
Stop filthy press!!
Kingofpop4ever3000
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I agree. And in my opinion, a large part of the problem is that they justify their actions by convincing themselves and the people around them that they're doing the right thing.
Petrarose
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Yeah they make statements like: the public needs to know about the corruption in----, the public needs to know how the police/government is using their money. They always make it sound like their aim is to do some great good to the public.
Yep, R. Brooks is being cross examined now. Here is what went on today:
"Phone hacking trial: Rebekah Brooks questioned over affair with deputy
Former News of the World editor tells court she and Andy Coulson had been close enough to share secrets
Nick Davies
The Guardian, Thursday 6 March 2014 14.32 EST
Phone Hacking Trial, Old Bailey, London, Britain - 06 Mar 2014
Rebekah Brooks on Thursday acknowledged that she and Andy Coulson had been close enough to share secrets with each other during two periods when they are accused of conspiring to produce stories based on intercepted voicemails.
In tense cross-examination, Andrew Edis QC challenged Brooks over the meaning of a letter she wrote to Coulson in February 2004.
Edis suggested the letter showed that they had been having an affair and sharing secrets for the preceding six years, during which time they published stories about Milly Dowler and David Blunkett which, the crown claims, were generated by hacking phone messages.
Brooks repeatedly insisted that although she and Coulson had begun an affair in 1998, it had not continued for six years.
The affair had stopped and both of them had got on with their lives before it had resumed briefly in 2003. "I hadn't been sitting there like Miss Havisham for six years," she said.
At one point, Edis quoted part of the letter to Coulson in which she wrote: "I confide in you. I seek your advice."
He asked her: "That included work matters, didn't it?"
"It could have done."
"Confide means trust – trust people with your confidences. No?"
"Yes."
"And that would include secrets relating to work?"
"And emotional issues as well."
Edis then referred to another passage in the letter in which Brooks wrote: "For six years I have waited."
"It suggests doesn't it that the relationship had lasted six years?"
Brooks said that was not correct.
"You would be telling the truth when you were writing?"
"I was in a very emotional state when I wrote this letter."
"That's all the more reason why you would be telling the truth. It's your heart-felt anguish."
"Yes."
"Which is absolutely genuine."
"Yes."
He went on to repeat that the letter suggested they had had an affair for six years.
Brooks replied: "That's not true … Andy had got on with his life. I'm clearly saying that it has been six years since we had got together… I had gone out, got married, tried to have a baby, got on with my life.
"The emotional feeling that I had towards Andy obviously came out in the letter. But we didn't have an affair for six years. We were close friends, good friends."
Edis turned to the state of their relationship in April 2002, when the crown claims that Brooks and Coulson plotted to use voicemail intercepted from the phone of the missing Surrey schoolgirl Milly Dowler.
Brooks was then editor of the News of the World but Coulson, her deputy, was editing the paper while she was on holiday in Dubai.
"At that time were you talking with him in that confidential way?"
"We were close friends."
"So you would trust each other?"
"I trusted him as a friend and as a deputy editor."
"If the deputy editor was committing a crime, he might not want the editor in normal circumstances to find out about it. But he might be able to tell the editor if he really trusted her."
Edis paused. "Was the relationship in April 2002 such that Mr Coulson could trust you with any confidence at all?"
"Yes," she whispered.
Edis then asked her about August 2004 when, the court has heard, Coulson, as editor of the News of the World, revealed an affair between David Blunkett and a woman whose name he withheld; and Brooks, as editor of the Sun, followed up the next day by naming the woman as Kimberly Quinn, publisher of the Spectator magazine.
The crown claims that Coulson obtained the story from messages which Blunkett had left on Quinn's phone and that he then passed her identity to Brooks.
Brooks has told the jury that she wrote her letter to Coulson in February 2004 after he had told her he wanted to end their second period of physical intimacy.
In the letter, she wrote that this meant that: "I can't discuss my worries, concerns, problems at work with you any more."
Edis put it to her that by August 2004, they were "back talking confidentially to each other by then?"
"We were certainly talking."
"But in that confidential way?"
"I think we were back to confiding, particularly on an emotional level by that stage."
Edis then showed her the billing record for a mobile phone which Coulson was using in August 2004 which showed that he had phoned Brooks immediately before he met Blunkett in Sheffield to tell him he planned to publish a story about his affair.
"Do you remember what he was saying to you?"
Brooks said she could not remember, that Coulson had often called or texted her at the beginning of the day. Edis said: "He is in Sheffield, going to see a cabinet minister. Surely he told you that."
"No. He didn't," she replied.
She went to say that she thought she had come up with Quinn's name after checking stories which had previously been published which mentioned that Quinn knew Blunkett and that, based on that suspicion, she had "taken a punt" and called Blunkett's special adviser, Huw Evans, to persuade him to confirm that she was right.
Edis said: "You would have to take a punt if you knew it was a phone-hacking story."
"I didn't know it was a phone-hacking story," she said.
"Didn't you?"
Brooks and Coulson deny conspiring to intercept communications. The trial continues."
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/mar/06/rebekah-brooks-phone-hacking-trial-secrets
"Phone hacking trial: Rebekah Brooks questioned over affair with deputy
Former News of the World editor tells court she and Andy Coulson had been close enough to share secrets
Nick Davies
The Guardian, Thursday 6 March 2014 14.32 EST
Phone Hacking Trial, Old Bailey, London, Britain - 06 Mar 2014
Rebekah Brooks on Thursday acknowledged that she and Andy Coulson had been close enough to share secrets with each other during two periods when they are accused of conspiring to produce stories based on intercepted voicemails.
In tense cross-examination, Andrew Edis QC challenged Brooks over the meaning of a letter she wrote to Coulson in February 2004.
Edis suggested the letter showed that they had been having an affair and sharing secrets for the preceding six years, during which time they published stories about Milly Dowler and David Blunkett which, the crown claims, were generated by hacking phone messages.
Brooks repeatedly insisted that although she and Coulson had begun an affair in 1998, it had not continued for six years.
The affair had stopped and both of them had got on with their lives before it had resumed briefly in 2003. "I hadn't been sitting there like Miss Havisham for six years," she said.
At one point, Edis quoted part of the letter to Coulson in which she wrote: "I confide in you. I seek your advice."
He asked her: "That included work matters, didn't it?"
"It could have done."
"Confide means trust – trust people with your confidences. No?"
"Yes."
"And that would include secrets relating to work?"
"And emotional issues as well."
Edis then referred to another passage in the letter in which Brooks wrote: "For six years I have waited."
"It suggests doesn't it that the relationship had lasted six years?"
Brooks said that was not correct.
"You would be telling the truth when you were writing?"
"I was in a very emotional state when I wrote this letter."
"That's all the more reason why you would be telling the truth. It's your heart-felt anguish."
"Yes."
"Which is absolutely genuine."
"Yes."
He went on to repeat that the letter suggested they had had an affair for six years.
Brooks replied: "That's not true … Andy had got on with his life. I'm clearly saying that it has been six years since we had got together… I had gone out, got married, tried to have a baby, got on with my life.
"The emotional feeling that I had towards Andy obviously came out in the letter. But we didn't have an affair for six years. We were close friends, good friends."
Edis turned to the state of their relationship in April 2002, when the crown claims that Brooks and Coulson plotted to use voicemail intercepted from the phone of the missing Surrey schoolgirl Milly Dowler.
Brooks was then editor of the News of the World but Coulson, her deputy, was editing the paper while she was on holiday in Dubai.
"At that time were you talking with him in that confidential way?"
"We were close friends."
"So you would trust each other?"
"I trusted him as a friend and as a deputy editor."
"If the deputy editor was committing a crime, he might not want the editor in normal circumstances to find out about it. But he might be able to tell the editor if he really trusted her."
Edis paused. "Was the relationship in April 2002 such that Mr Coulson could trust you with any confidence at all?"
"Yes," she whispered.
Edis then asked her about August 2004 when, the court has heard, Coulson, as editor of the News of the World, revealed an affair between David Blunkett and a woman whose name he withheld; and Brooks, as editor of the Sun, followed up the next day by naming the woman as Kimberly Quinn, publisher of the Spectator magazine.
The crown claims that Coulson obtained the story from messages which Blunkett had left on Quinn's phone and that he then passed her identity to Brooks.
Brooks has told the jury that she wrote her letter to Coulson in February 2004 after he had told her he wanted to end their second period of physical intimacy.
In the letter, she wrote that this meant that: "I can't discuss my worries, concerns, problems at work with you any more."
Edis put it to her that by August 2004, they were "back talking confidentially to each other by then?"
"We were certainly talking."
"But in that confidential way?"
"I think we were back to confiding, particularly on an emotional level by that stage."
Edis then showed her the billing record for a mobile phone which Coulson was using in August 2004 which showed that he had phoned Brooks immediately before he met Blunkett in Sheffield to tell him he planned to publish a story about his affair.
"Do you remember what he was saying to you?"
Brooks said she could not remember, that Coulson had often called or texted her at the beginning of the day. Edis said: "He is in Sheffield, going to see a cabinet minister. Surely he told you that."
"No. He didn't," she replied.
She went to say that she thought she had come up with Quinn's name after checking stories which had previously been published which mentioned that Quinn knew Blunkett and that, based on that suspicion, she had "taken a punt" and called Blunkett's special adviser, Huw Evans, to persuade him to confirm that she was right.
Edis said: "You would have to take a punt if you knew it was a phone-hacking story."
"I didn't know it was a phone-hacking story," she said.
"Didn't you?"
Brooks and Coulson deny conspiring to intercept communications. The trial continues."
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/mar/06/rebekah-brooks-phone-hacking-trial-secrets
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Cross-examination of R. Brooks from yesterdy--claiming that she didn't know (the convicted phone hacker) Glenn Mulcaire was being paid the big bucks. LOL. And she doesn't know what "cooking the books" means (b/c she is so innocent and pure after having worked for decades for R. Murdock). oh, yeah.
"Rebekah Brooks denies 'cooking the books' to hide phone hacker's activities
Ex-News of the World editor tells court £92,000-a-year contract 'never came to my attention' as it was paid in weekly instalments
Lisa O'Carroll
theguardian.com, Thursday 6 March 2014 07.43 EST
Rebekah Brooks told the phone-hacking trial that Glenn Mulcaire's contract 'never came to my attention'.
Rebekah Brooks has denied "cooking the books" at the News of the World to disguise the real activities of phone hacker Glenn Mulcaire, the Old Bailey has heard.
The former NoW editor said Muclaire's contract as a private investigator employed by the paper for £92,000 a year never came to her attention because the newsdesk paid him in weekly instalments, effectively keeping from her what was a large contract.
In her 11th day in the witness box at the phone-hacking trial on Thursday, Brooks was quizzed in detail about how she authorised payments at the paper, which she edited between 2000 and 2003.
Prosecutor Andrew Edis QC put it to Brooks that one of News International's most senior executives, Clive Milner, the managing director of News Group Newspapers, had objected to a pay increase for one of her reporters from £55,000 to £60,000.
Brooks said his objection was not that she was offering a £5,000 increase to chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck, but that it was not made at the beginning of the financial year.
Edis put it to her that if someone was on £92,000 "Mr Milner would not be happy about that".
Brooks said Milner worked on the commercial side of the business and editorial costs would have been discussed with a different executive, Les Hinton, the executive chairman of News International.
Edis asked if she ever explained to Milner that the reason Mulcaire was paid weekly was to hide his real work, which was illegal. Brooks responded: "No, I complete disagree with that."
She went on to say that she accepted that it is now clear that between 2005 and 2006 Mulcaire was involved in "something illegal and in serious breaches of privacy which I completely disagree with".
In a tense exchange, Edis put it to her: "It is now perfectly clear that effectively the books were cooked to prevent anybody investigating or finding out what Mr Muclaire was doing."
Dropping her voice Brooks responded: "But I didn't cook any books."
Edis continued: "But the books were cooked,weren't they?"
Brooks said she did not know what Edis meant by "cooking the books".
Edis again put it to her that Mulcaire's payments were deliberately put through the editorial payment system on a weekly basis in order to prevent them being flagged up to executives who had limited her authorisation for spending to £50,000.
"Yes, it is entirely correct that the contract because of its cumulative total should have been given to me," said Brooks.
"Because it was being paid out in relatively small weekly payments and because the newsdesk religiously kept within its weekly spending limits, it never came to my attention. I accept that it should have come to Mr [Stuart] Kuttner [the News of the World managing editor], Mr Milner and me."
Edis put it to her that Kuttner did approve weekly payments. He asked: "Did he ever say 'I'm paying £1,769 to a company that I've never heard of and I don't know what they do. Is that all right boss?'"
Brooks replied: "No, he didn't ever say anything like that to me."
Brooks and Kuttner have denied charges that they conspired with others to hack phones.
Earlier the trial heard that Mulcaire used several aliases and several company names including Euro Research and Information Services and Nine Consultancy for payments from the News of the World.
The trial also heard that Greg Miskiw, the head of the paper's investigations unit, tasked Mulcaire for his investigations.
Earlier on Thursday Brooks described Miskiw as a "wise head". She said she was not close to him and he had been a rival of hers when she started off working at the News of the World in the features department. He was "old school" and much older than her – "45 or 48".
Brooks was also quizzed about what illegal activities she would and would not have sanctioned. She repeated her assertion that she might have approved of a journalist hacking a phone if they had come to her with a strong enough public interest defence.
But she said: "I think it's an extreme breach" adding: "I never asked anyone to intercept a voicemail."
Remaining calm, Brooks maintained her composure in the second day of cross examination, occasionally pausing to answer and occasionally lowering her voice to the point of being inaudible.
She said if she had discovered Miskiw had entered a contract behind her back that went over her weekly spending limits she would have asked questions.
The trial continues."
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/mar/06/rebekah-brooks-news-world-phone-hacking-trial
"Rebekah Brooks denies 'cooking the books' to hide phone hacker's activities
Ex-News of the World editor tells court £92,000-a-year contract 'never came to my attention' as it was paid in weekly instalments
Lisa O'Carroll
theguardian.com, Thursday 6 March 2014 07.43 EST
Rebekah Brooks told the phone-hacking trial that Glenn Mulcaire's contract 'never came to my attention'.
Rebekah Brooks has denied "cooking the books" at the News of the World to disguise the real activities of phone hacker Glenn Mulcaire, the Old Bailey has heard.
The former NoW editor said Muclaire's contract as a private investigator employed by the paper for £92,000 a year never came to her attention because the newsdesk paid him in weekly instalments, effectively keeping from her what was a large contract.
In her 11th day in the witness box at the phone-hacking trial on Thursday, Brooks was quizzed in detail about how she authorised payments at the paper, which she edited between 2000 and 2003.
Prosecutor Andrew Edis QC put it to Brooks that one of News International's most senior executives, Clive Milner, the managing director of News Group Newspapers, had objected to a pay increase for one of her reporters from £55,000 to £60,000.
Brooks said his objection was not that she was offering a £5,000 increase to chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck, but that it was not made at the beginning of the financial year.
Edis put it to her that if someone was on £92,000 "Mr Milner would not be happy about that".
Brooks said Milner worked on the commercial side of the business and editorial costs would have been discussed with a different executive, Les Hinton, the executive chairman of News International.
Edis asked if she ever explained to Milner that the reason Mulcaire was paid weekly was to hide his real work, which was illegal. Brooks responded: "No, I complete disagree with that."
She went on to say that she accepted that it is now clear that between 2005 and 2006 Mulcaire was involved in "something illegal and in serious breaches of privacy which I completely disagree with".
In a tense exchange, Edis put it to her: "It is now perfectly clear that effectively the books were cooked to prevent anybody investigating or finding out what Mr Muclaire was doing."
Dropping her voice Brooks responded: "But I didn't cook any books."
Edis continued: "But the books were cooked,weren't they?"
Brooks said she did not know what Edis meant by "cooking the books".
Edis again put it to her that Mulcaire's payments were deliberately put through the editorial payment system on a weekly basis in order to prevent them being flagged up to executives who had limited her authorisation for spending to £50,000.
"Yes, it is entirely correct that the contract because of its cumulative total should have been given to me," said Brooks.
"Because it was being paid out in relatively small weekly payments and because the newsdesk religiously kept within its weekly spending limits, it never came to my attention. I accept that it should have come to Mr [Stuart] Kuttner [the News of the World managing editor], Mr Milner and me."
Edis put it to her that Kuttner did approve weekly payments. He asked: "Did he ever say 'I'm paying £1,769 to a company that I've never heard of and I don't know what they do. Is that all right boss?'"
Brooks replied: "No, he didn't ever say anything like that to me."
Brooks and Kuttner have denied charges that they conspired with others to hack phones.
Earlier the trial heard that Mulcaire used several aliases and several company names including Euro Research and Information Services and Nine Consultancy for payments from the News of the World.
The trial also heard that Greg Miskiw, the head of the paper's investigations unit, tasked Mulcaire for his investigations.
Earlier on Thursday Brooks described Miskiw as a "wise head". She said she was not close to him and he had been a rival of hers when she started off working at the News of the World in the features department. He was "old school" and much older than her – "45 or 48".
Brooks was also quizzed about what illegal activities she would and would not have sanctioned. She repeated her assertion that she might have approved of a journalist hacking a phone if they had come to her with a strong enough public interest defence.
But she said: "I think it's an extreme breach" adding: "I never asked anyone to intercept a voicemail."
Remaining calm, Brooks maintained her composure in the second day of cross examination, occasionally pausing to answer and occasionally lowering her voice to the point of being inaudible.
She said if she had discovered Miskiw had entered a contract behind her back that went over her weekly spending limits she would have asked questions.
The trial continues."
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/mar/06/rebekah-brooks-news-world-phone-hacking-trial
Petrarose
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Brooks was also quizzed about what illegal activities she would and would not have sanctioned. She repeated her assertion that she might have approved of a journalist hacking a phone if they had come to her with a strong enough public interest defence.
^^She is still pretending that her paper was a public good I see. I really hope this woman goes to jail. The next thing they have to go after is tabloids paying more money to people so they can make up dirt to say. There has to be a law against that too.
^^She is still pretending that her paper was a public good I see. I really hope this woman goes to jail. The next thing they have to go after is tabloids paying more money to people so they can make up dirt to say. There has to be a law against that too.