Rupert Murdoch and the Corruption of the British Media

[Douglas Caddy]

Jeremy Hunt 'should have known' what his special adviser was up to, Leveson Inquiry told

Jeremy Hunt, the Culture Secretary, should have known what his special adviser was doing when he gave News Corporation daily updates on the Government’s scrutiny of its bid for BSkyB, Britain’s former top civil servant has said.

By Gordon Rayner, Chief Reporter

The Telegraph

3:14PM BST 14 May 2012

Lord O’Donnell, who was Cabinet Secretary until the end of last year, suggested that Mr Hunt should have been “clear” about what was expected of Adam Smith, the special adviser who resigned last month after emails he sent to News Corp were disclosed by the Leveson Inquiry.

Asked by Lord Justice Leveson for his opinion on how the relationship between Mr Hunt and Mr Smith “should have worked”, Lord O’Donnell said: “It’s clear in the special advisers’ code [of conduct] that in terms of authorisation ministers should authorise their special advisers as to what they should do, for example with the media.

“I would have expected the minister to be clear as to what he thought the special adviser should have been doing.”

He also suggested that “all parties” should have been kept informed about the progress of the scrutiny of the News Corp bid for BSkyB.

"Talking about process is fine," he said, "but you should make sure that the same information is

Mr Hunt has faced calls to resign after dozens of emails between Mr Smith and News Corp lobbyist were submitted to the Leveson Inquiry by Rupert Murdoch last month.

They appeared to show that News Corp was given advance notice of major decisions in the regulatory process and that Mr Hunt had assured News Corp that the bid would be successful well before the process had been completed.

Lord O’Donnell was also asked about the appointment of Andy Coulson, the former editor of the News of the World, as the Downing Street communications chief in 2010.

He said Mr Coulson signed a statement of his financial interests, but omitted to mention the fact that he owned shares in News Corp which had been part of his severance package.

Last week Mr Coulson told the Inquiry he had failed to declare £40,000 of News Corp shares, which he acknowledged gave rise to a potential conflict of interest.

Lord O’Donnell disclosed that Gordon Brown had asked him for his advice on starting an inquiry into media standards in March 2010, and he advised against it.

Asked whether he had been unwilling to pick up a "hot potato", the peer replied: "I would say it was clearly a big potato. The timing was not ideal.

"If you are going to do this it would be good to have all-party agreement. Trying to broker such a thing in the weeks leading up to a general election would be quite difficult."

[Douglas Caddy]

Rebekah Brooks and six others to learn if charged over phone hacking

Rebekah Brooks will find out tomorrow whether she is to be charged over the alleged destruction of evidence relating to phone-hacking.

By Gordon Rayner, Chief Reporter

Guardian.uk.

5:47PM BST

14 May 2012

Alison Levitt QC, principal legal adviser to the Director of Public Prosecutions, will announce at 10am whether the former News International chief executive and six others are to be charged with perverting the course of justice.

Last month a file on the seven, who also include Mrs Brooks’s husband Charlie, was sent to the Crown Prosecution Service by the Metropolitan Police team investigating phone-hacking.

Mr and Mrs Brooks were arrested in March as part of Operation Sacha, an investigation into alleged attempts to destroy material relating to Scotland Yard’s inquiries into phone-hacking, computer hacking and corrupt payments to public officials.

The arrests followed reports that News International instigated an “email deletion policy” as victims of phone-hacking began suing its subsidiary, News Group Newspapers, publisher of the News of the World.

Last year police examined a computer, paperwork and a mobile phone found in a bag in a bin near the Brooks’s London home the day after Mrs Brooks had been arrested on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications and of corrupting police officers.

Mrs Brooks’s spokesman said at the time that the bag and its contents belonged to Charlie Brooks, a columnist for The Daily Telegraph, and were nothing to do with Mrs Brooks or the phone-hacking case.

The discovery of the bag in a bin was put down by Mr Brooks to a mix-up over where the bag should be dropped off after he lent it to a friend.

Mr and Mrs Brooks and the five others who were arrested on suspicion of perverting the course of justice will only be told moments of the CPS’s decision moments before it is publicly announced.

So far, no-one has been charged since Scotland Yard launched a fresh investigation into phone-hacking in January last year.

More than 40 people remain on bail after being questioned by detectives

[Steve Knight]

Breaking news :

Rebekah Brooks has been charged with Perverting the Course of Justice.

I'll post a link as soon as they update their sites

Edit : This announcement broken by Brooks herself, BEFORE the CPS ... what a ...Witch!! Totally not the way things are done.

Edit 2: Here we go...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/may/15/rebekah-brooks-charged-perverting-course-justice?newsfeed=true

Rebekah Brooks to be charged with perverting the course of justice

Former News International chief executive and her husband to be charged in phone-hacking inquiry

• 
  Sandra Laville, crime correspondent
  
• guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 15 May 2012 09.56 BST
  

Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of News International, is to be charged with perverting the course of justice, the Crown Prosecution Service said on Tuesday.

Brooks, who was arrested in March by Scotland Yard officers investigating phone hacking, is the first person to face charges in the major criminal investigation into hacking and allegations of bribing public officials.

Her husband, Charlie Brooks, the racehorse trainer and friend of the prime minister, is also to be charged, the CPS announced.

They will be summonsed to court where the charges will be formally laid.

The charges are the first since Operation Weeting began. Scotland Yard has budgeted for three linked inquiries to run to 2015 at a cost of more than £40m. The CPS is still studying four more files which have been passed to them by detectives investigating phone hacking, leaks and alleged bribes to the police.

Edited May 15, 2012 by Steve Knight

[Steve Knight]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18062485

15 May 2012 Last updated at 10:03

Rebekah Brooks to be charged over phone hacking

Rebekah Brooks and her husband, Charlie, are to be charged with perverting the course of justice as part of the phone hacking inquiry.

She was arrested on 13 March as part of the Met Police's Operation Weeting.

In a statement, they accused the CPS of "posturing" and said: "We deplore this weak and unjust decision."

The couple will become the first suspects to be charged in an inquiry lasting 18 months and involving 185 police officers and staff.

Revealing the charges ahead of a CPS announcement, the couple said: "We have this morning been informed by the Office of the Department of Public Prosecutions that we are to be charged with perverting the course of justice."

They added: "We deplore this weak and unjust decision.

"After the further unprecedented posturing of the CPS we will respond later today after our return from the police station."

[Douglas Caddy]

Rebekah Brooks to be charged with perverting the course of justice

Former News International chief executive, her husband and four others to be charged in phone-hacking inquiry

By Sandra Laville, crime correspondent

guardian.co.uk,

Tuesday 15 May 2012 08.45 EDT

The Crown Prosecution Service says Rebekah Brooks will be charged with perverting the course of justice. Video: ITN Link to this video

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/may/15/rebekah-brooks-charged-perverting-course-justice

Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of News International, is to be charged over allegations that she tried to conceal evidence from detectives investigating phone hacking and alleged bribes to public officials.

Brooks, one of the most high-profile figures in the newspaper industry, will be charged later on Tuesday with three counts of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice in July last year at the height of the police investigation, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) announced.

She is accused of conspiring with others, including her husband, Charlie Brooks, the racehorse trainer and friend of the prime minister, and her personal assistant, to conceal material from detectives.

Brooks and her husband were informed of the charging decision – the first since the start of the Operation Weeting phone-hacking investigation last January – when they answered their bail at a police station in London on Tuesday morning.

They are among six individuals from News International, along with the company's head of security, Mark Hanna, to be charged over allegations that they removed material, documents and computers to hide them from officers investigating phone hacking. The charge carries a maximum penalty of life, although the average term served in prison is 10 months.

In a statement, Brooks and her husband – who are both close to David Cameron – condemned the decision made by senior lawyers and overseen by Keir Starmer QC, the director of public prosecutions.

"We deplore this weak and unjust decision after the further unprecedented posturing of the CPS," the statement said. "We will respond later today after our return from the police station."

The CPS chose to announce the charges against Brooks, her husband and four others in a televised statement in the interests of "transparency and accountability".

Brooks is accused in one charge of conspiring with her PA, Cheryl Carter, to "remove seven boxes of material from the archives of News International".

In a separate charge she is accused of conspiring with her husband, Hanna, her chauffeur and a security consultant to conceal "documents and computers" from the investigating detectives. All the offences are alleged to have taken place in July last year.

Alison Levitt QC, Starmer's principal legal adviser, said the decision to charge six of the seven individuals arrested over the allegations came after prosecutors applied the two-stage test required of them when making charging decisions.

"I have concluded that in relation to all suspects except the seventh there is sufficient evidence for there to be a realistic prospect of conviction," she said.

"I then considered the second stage of the test and I have concluded that a prosecution is required in the public interest in relation to each of the other six."

Levitt said the televised statement had been made in "the interests of transparency and accountability to explain the decisions reached in respect of allegations that Rebekah Brooks conspired with her husband, Charles Brooks, and others to pervert the course of justice".

She said detectives handed prosecutors a file of evidence on 27 March this year in relation to seven suspects: Brooks, her husband, Hanna, Carter, Paul Edwards who was Brooks's chauffeur employed by News International, and Daryl Jorsling, who provided security for Brooks, supplied by News international.

The seventh suspect – who has not been named – also provided security. But Levitt said no charges were to be laid against him.

Brooks is charged on count one that between 6 July and 19 July 2011 she conspired with Charles Brooks, Carter, Hanna, Edwards, Jorsling and persons unknown to conceal material from officers of the Metropolitan Police Service.

On count two she is charged with Carter between 6 July and 9 July 2011 of conspiring together to permanently remove seven boxes of material from the archive of News International. In the third count Brooks is charged with her husband, Hanna, Edwards and Jorsling and persons unknown of conspiring together between 15 July and 19 July 2011 to conceal documents, computers and other electronic equipment from officers of the Metropolitan Police Service.

In a statement issued through her solicitor, Carter said she "vigorously denies" the charges.

Hanna said: "I have no doubt that ultimately justice will prevail and I will be totally exonerated."

All the allegations relate to the police investigation into allegations of phone hacking and corruption of public officials in relation to the News of the World and the Sun newspapers, Levitt said.

Brooks and her husband had travelled to London from their home in Oxfordshire to answer bail following their arrest in March on suspicion of perverting the course of justice. They were informed of the decision at that meeting. They will attend Westminster magistrates court along with the four others at a date to be fixed.

The six people become the first to be charged as a result of the new Scotland Yard investigation into phone hacking. The inquiry is one of three linked investigations for which the Yard has budgeted £40m until 2015.

Carter was the first to be arrested on suspicion of perverting the course of justice in January. Two months later the other suspects were arrested.

The news of the charges came as Scotland Yard announced on Tuesday that two further people had been arrested in connection with alleged bribery of public officials.

A 50-year-old man who works for HM Revenue and Customs and a 43-year-old woman from the same address were arrested by officers from Operation Eleveden, the Met police operation investigating alleged bribery of public officials. The man was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in a public office and the woman on suspicion of aiding and abetting the offence.

Brooks was a high-flyer at News International. At 31, she became News of the World editor and three years later, in 2003, was given the editorship of the Sun. She was appointed chief executive of News International in 2009 before quitting in July 2011.

Days later she was arrested over alleged phone hacking and corruption offences, for which she remains on bail without charge. She was arrested again in March in connection with the separate allegation of perverting the course of justice along with her husband and others.

Charlie Brooks has been a columnist for the Daily Telegraph as well as writing a novel entitled Citizen.

Prosecutors are still considering four files of evidence – relating to at least 20 suspects – and involving allegations of phone hacking, alleged bribery of public officials and misconduct in a public office from the linked inquiries.

Starmer said he was facing "very difficult and sensitive decisions" as he predicted last month that more cases were coming his way.

Police launched Operation Weeting, the inquiry devoted specifically to phone hacking, after receiving "significant new information" from News International on 26 January last year.

Operation Elveden was launched months later following allegations that News International journalists made illegal payments to police officers.

As the inquiry escalated officers launched three related operations: the Sasha inquiry into allegations of perverting the course of justice; Kilo, an inquiry into police leaks; and Tuleta, the investigation into computer-related offences.

News International did not immediately make a statement, but confirmed that it still employed Hanna and Edwards.

A spokesman for Rebekah Brooks said she and her husband were still with police, and that the couple were likely to release a further statement on Tuesday afternoon.

[Douglas Caddy]

Analysis: Decision to charge Rebekah Brooks means hacking will hang over Government until next election

David Cameron is currently in his weekly Cabinet meeting – it started at 9.45am – and will almost certainly have been informed about the decision to charge Rebekah Brooks with three charges of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice earlier.

By Christopher Hope, Senior Political Correspondent

The Telegraph

10:32AM BST 15 May 2012

During the various presentations during the 90 minute meeting from other Cabinet ministers, he will have had the chance to reflect on the fate of his old friend and Oxfordshire neighbour Mrs Brooks.

Unquestionably the decision to charge the former tabloid editor and chief executive of News International hugely increases the pressure on the Prime Minister, who is due to give evidence under oath to the Leveson inquiry on press ethics within the next few weeks.

Crucially it also means that the spectre of phone hacking will hang over the Government right up until the next general election, due in 2015, with the prospect of potentially more embarrassing disclosures from the court process.

Mr Cameron had tried to limit the embarrassment from the Leveson inquiry by requiring it to report this autumn. However, the prospect of the trial of Mrs Brooks means that the prospect of further embarrassing disclosures will hang over for a long time after that.

Mr Cameron and Mrs Brooks were certainly close – he used to sign text messages to her “LOL [Lots of Love] DC” – and it is this relationship that will come under such scrutiny from the inquiry’s QC Robert Jay.

According to Mrs Brooks’ diary, the pair met on 22 different occasions over the past six years – on average once every three months. Some of those meetings were in Oxfordshire over Christmas 2010, when Rupert Murdoch was trying to buy the remaining shares in BSkyB.

That's only the meetings with Mr Cameron. There could be other disclosures from other meetings with other Cabinet ministers, which could also prove difficult to explain away for the Government.

Yet so far we only know about the fact of these meetings. It is highly likely that as part of the routine court disclosure process, more embarrassing details might emerge, which could further damage the Prime Minister and his Cabinet colleagues. This has a long way to go.

[Steve Knight]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18075775

15 May 2012 Last updated at 18:45

Rebekah Brooks anger over charge in phone-hacking probe

Rebekah Brooks has expressed anger after she was charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice over the phone-hacking inquiry.

Her husband, Charlie, three of Mrs Brooks's staff, and News International security head Mark Hanna, are also charged with the offence.

Mrs Brooks said she was "baffled" to face charges which were "an expensive sideshow, a waste of public money".

They will appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court on 13 June.

They have been charged with offences including concealing documents and computers from police.

The charges, which relate to alleged offences in July last year, are the first in an inquiry lasting 18 months - more than 40 other people remain on police bail in the investigation.

In a statement delivered outside her solicitor's London office, while standing next to her racehorse trainer husband, Mrs Brooks said: "One day the details of this case will emerge and people will see today as nothing more than an expensive sideshow."

Mr Brooks said he had been used as a "scapegoat" to "ratchet up the pressure" on his wife, who he claimed was the victim of a

"witch-hunt".

The ex-News of the World editor herself said she was "baffled" by the decision.

She described the investigation as a "waste of public money" and added: "One day the details of this case will emerge and people will see today as nothing more than an expensive sideshow."

Mrs Brooks was editor of the News of the World (NoW) when voicemails on murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler's mobile phone were allegedly intercepted.

She quit as chief executive of News International in July 2011 - the same month as the alleged conspiracy offences are said to have taken place - after the phone-hacking scandal led to the paper's closure.

Mrs Brooks, 43, from Churchill, Oxfordshire, has denied any knowledge of phone hacking on her watch.

Announcing the decision to charge the six, the director of public prosecutions' senior legal adviser, Alison Levitt, QC, said she was making a statement "in the interests of transparency and accountability".

Mrs Brooks was arrested on 13 March as part of Operation Weeting.

She is charged with conspiring with her 49-year-old husband, personal assistant Cheryl Carter, chauffeur Paul Edwards, security man Daryl Jorsling, and News International head of security Mr Hanna to "conceal material" from police between 6 and 19 July.

In a second charge Mrs Brooks and Ms Carter are accused of conspiring to remove seven boxes of material from the News International archive between 6 and 9 July.

In a third charge, Mr and Mrs Brooks, Mr Hanna, Mr Edwards and Mr Jorsling are accused of conspiring to conceal documents, computers and other electronic equipment from police officers between 15 and 19 July.

A seventh unnamed suspect, who also provided security for Mrs Brooks, will not be charged.

Lawyer Henri Brandman said Ms Carter, 48, from Chelmsford, Essex, "vigorously" denied the charge she faced and thanked her family and friends for their support during this "most unhappy period of her life".

Mr Hanna said he would be "totally exonerated", adding that he was innocent of the charges against him and he had "no doubt that ultimately justice will prevail".

Mrs Brooks became editor of the NoW in 2000 at the age of 31 before she took up the same role at the Sun three years later.

She was made chief executive of News International in 2009 and resigned in July 2011.

She was arrested a few days later on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications and corruption, and remains on bail without charge for those alleged offences.

Mrs Brooks was then re-arrested on 13 March on suspicion of conspiring to pervert the course.

On Friday, appearing at the Leveson Inquiry into press ethics, Mrs Brooks said that Prime Minister David Cameron sent her a "keep your head up" message when she quit News International.

The BBC's June Kelly said the developments were likely to be "highly embarrassing" for Mr Cameron who attended Eton College with Mr Brooks and was a friend of both the racehorse trainer and his wife.

Our correspondent said of Mrs Brooks: "For a decade she was close to those at top of Scotland Yard but for the past year the force, which once loaned her a horse, has been investigating her.

"The woman who, for so long, wielded power and influence in British public life must now begin preparing for her first court appearance."

Mr Jorsling, 39, from Ash Vale, near Guildford, Surrey; Mr Edwards, 47, of Kilburn, west London; and Mr Hanna, 49, from Buckingham, Bucks, were all notified of the charges on Tuesday.

Scotland Yard is conducting three investigations relating to phone-hacking.

Operation Weeting is looking into allegations of hacking by the NoW into private voicemails, Operation Elveden is examining allegations that journalists from News International made "inappropriate" payments to police, and Operation Tuleta is investigating computer hacking.

Analysis

Dominic Casciani

Home affairs correspondent

The Crown Prosecution Service performed two tests before charging Rebekah Brooks and others: Was the evidence good enough to have a realistic chance of a conviction - and would a prosecution be in the public interest?

Conspiring to pervert the course of justice is a serious crime. It has to be tried in the Crown Court before a jury and can, in theory, lead to a life sentence.

But in practice the sentencing range is huge because it comes down to the severity of the offence and the nature of any cover-up.

In one recent case, a defendant was jailed for three years for concealing evidence in a fatal accident.

[Douglas Caddy]

Rebekah Brooks defiant over charges relating to phone-hacking 'cover-up'

Former News International CEO expressed anger that those close to her had been 'dragged into the affair'

By Sandra Laville and Dan Sabbagh

guardian.co.uk,

Tuesday 15 May 2012 15.32 EDT

Rebekah and Charlie Brooks's statement. Video: ITN Link to this video

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/may/15/rebekah-brooks-defiant-phone-hacking

Rebekah Brooks made a defiant attack on the "weak and unjust" decision by the prosecuting authorities to bring charges against her on Tuesday and dismissed the case as an "expensive sideshow and waste of public money".

Outside her solicitor's office in London, the former chief executive of News International said she could not express how angry she was that those close to her had been "unfairly dragged into this".

An emotional and nervous-looking Brooks, 43, spoke out after a momentous day in the phone-hacking affair saw her facing three charges of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice over allegations that she concealed "material, documents and computers" from detectives investigating phone hacking at the News of the World and alleged bribes to public officials by journalists at the Sun.

Her husband, Charlie Brooks, a racehorse trainer and friend of the prime minister, faces one charge of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice by acting with others to "conceal documents, computer and other electronic devices" from detectives.

Speaking alongside his wife, he also condemned the decision as "an attempt to use me and others as scapegoats, the effect of which is to ratchet up the pressure on my wife, who I believe is the subject of a witch-hunt".

The couple were among six individuals – including News International's head of security, Mark Hanna – charged over allegations that they were engaged in a cover-up to hide evidence from police investigating phone hacking at the News of the World.

One of the most high profile figures in the newspaper industry, and a close confidante of Rupert Murdoch, Brooks was charged by police at a police station in Lewisham on Tuesday afternoon. She had travelled to London with her husband from their home in Oxfordshire to answer bail after their arrest in March.

The couple were made to attend different police stations – Mrs Brooks at Lewisham, and her husband at Hammersmith – to have the charges laid against them.

The decision to bring the first charges in the long-running phone-hacking investigation, Operation Weeting, had been announced earlier by Alison Levitt QC, of the CPS, in a high-profile televised statement, the lawyer said, in the interests of "transparency and accountability".

Brooks, however, condemned the live broadcast as "the further unprecedented posturing of the CPS".

All the alleged offences took place in July last year when the phone-hacking investigation was at its height.

The charge is a serious one which carries a maximum penalty of life, although the average term served in prison is 10 months. Brooks also remains on bail over phone-hacking allegations and allegations over bribes to public officials.

Levitt said the decision to charge six of the seven individuals arrested for conspiring to pervert the course of justice came after prosecutors applied the two-stage test they are required to when making charging decisions.

"I have concluded that in relation to all suspects except the seventh there is sufficient evidence for there to be a realistic prospect of conviction," she said.

"I then considered the second stage of the test and I have concluded that a prosecution is required in the public interest in relation to each of the other six."

Brooks and her husband were arrested in March. Detectives from Operation Weeting then handed their file of evidence on the couple and the other individuals to the CPS on 27 March. The five others arrested were Hanna, Cheryl Carter, Ms Brooks's former personal assistant for 19 years, Paul Edwards, Brooks's chauffeur and employee of News International, and Daryl Jorsling, who provided Brooks with security, supplied by News International.

The seventh suspect – who has not been named – also provided security.

Scotland Yard said later that the seventh man – for whom no charges were laid – had been released with no further action to be taken.

The first charge against Mrs Brooks alleges that between 6 July and 19 July 2011 she conspired with Charlie Brooks, Cheryl Carter, Mark Hanna, Paul Edwards, Daryl Jorsling and persons unknown to conceal material from officers of the Metropolitan Police Service.

The second charge, which she faces along with Carter, alleges that between 6 July and 9 July 2011 they conspired together to permanently remove seven boxes of material from the archive of News International.

In the third charge she is accused, along with her husband, Mark Hanna, Paul Edwards and Daryl Jorsling and persons unknown, of conspiring together between 15 July and 19 July 2011 to conceal documents, computers and other electronic equipment from officers of the Metropolitan Police Service.

Brooks and her husband revealed they were to be charged some 10 minutes before the CPS live announcement on Tuesdaymorning.

They promised they would make a further statement after attending the police station. They did that shortly after 5pm outside their solicitors, Kingsley Napier, in London.

Looking tired, Brooks said: "Whilst I have always respected the criminal justice system, you have to question whether this decision has been made on a proper impartial assessment of the evidence. Although I understand the need for a thorough investigation, I am baffled by the decision to charge me.

"However, I cannot express my anger enough that those close to me have unfairly been dragged into this.

"As the details of the case emerge people will see today as an expensive sideshow, and a waste of public money as a result of this weak and unjust decision."

Standing next to her, Mr Brooks raised doubts that his wife would get a fair trial.

"There are 172 police officers, about the equivalent of eight murder squads, working on this; so it doesn't surprise me that the pressure is on to prosecute, no matter how weak the cases will be," he said.

"I am confident that the lack of evidence against me will be borne out in court, but I have grave doubts that my wife will ever get a fair trial, given the volume of biased commentary which she has been subject to."

Scotland Yard said all six defendants were released on bail to appear at Westminster magistrates on 13 June.

[John Simkin]

For the first-time I am beginning to believe that senior members of Murdoch's empire will be held to account. Cover-ups are always the easier bit of any conspiracy to proove. I cannot see how Rebekah Brooks is going to get out of this one. Interestingly. the strategy of David Cameron a year ago was to argue that he was a close friend of her husband, Charlie Brooks and that he spent time with Rebekah via her husband. This was not true. Although they both went to Eton they were not friends at school. Cameron was three years younger than Brooks at school (three years is a lot when you are at Eton). This was a cover-story. Yet, by arresting and charging Charlie, Cameron is linked even closer to the case.

[Douglas Caddy]

Leveson Inquiry: Jack Straw reveals he 'gossipped' with Rebekah Brooks on the train every week

Jack Straw arranged to meet Rebekah Brooks every week for a "gossip" as they shared a train journey to London from Oxfordshire, the Leveson Inquiry has heard.

By Gordon Rayner, Chief Reporter

The Telegraph

12:36PM BST 16 May 2012

To view video:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/leveson-inquiry/9269634/Leveson-Inquiry-Jack-Straw-reveals-he-gossipped-with-Rebekah-Brooks-on-the-train-every-week.html

The former home secretary said he and the ex-chief executive of News International made an arrangement to sit next to each other every Monday morning after discovering they both caught the same early morning service.

Despite being the MP for Blackburn, Mr Straw had a weekend home in Minster Lovell, a few miles from Mrs Brooks’s country home in Churchill, Oxon.

Mr Straw told the Leveson Inquiry that from 2007 to 2009, when he was justice secretary, he and Mrs Brooks “made arrangements” to sit together on the train, which Mr Straw caught at Charlbury. Mrs Brooks was editor of The Sun at the time.

"We would talk about what was in the papers,” he said. “We'd gossip about personalities, and that sort of thing. We weren't nattering the whole journey.”

He said the conversations never involved anything sensitive because there were always people "earwigging".

The arrangement petered out in 2009 when Mrs Brooks became chief executive of News International.

Mr Straw admitted that Tony Blair's government had been too cosy with the press, blaming the fact that in opposition, links with journalists had become "very, very close, sometimes incestuous".

He said Rupert Murdoch had “power” over politicians, and: "He reckoned his political influence would be greater if, as it were, his support was available in return for what he thought he could get out of it.

"I don't mean a deal, because I have seen no evidence of a deal. But he thought there was something in it."

He went on: "I think that the perception I have got is that Mr Murdoch is enjoying the fact that he has been willing to play with political leaders in the way that the senior executives of the other papers have not.

"He is very interested in power for its own sake, because you do not get to that position running a huge international media empire without being interested in power."

Pressed on what Mr Murdoch might have thought he would get from his influence over politicians, Mr Straw suggested he wanted to "consolidate his non-newspaper interests in this country".

Mr Murdoch believed remaining available could "open more doors in government when it came to things like media regulation, licences, regulation of football and so on".

The Labour MP rejected as "disingenuous" James Murdoch's efforts to play down the importance of News International's publications to the wider News Corporation empire. Although they only constituted 2% of the group's financial interests, they were far more significant to the business in other ways, he said.

Asked whether Mr Murdoch wielded "power" or "influence", Mr Straw replied: "Certainly, to those on the receiving end it felt like power."

[Douglas Caddy]

Tom Cruise says his phone may have been hacked

Tom Cruise has indicated in an interview that his phone may have been hacked by journalists.

The Telegraph

12:39PM BST

17 May 2012

The Hollywood actor's disclosure during a magazine interview make him potentially the highest-profile victim of the practice which has resulted in the closure of the News of the World, a major police probe, and the Leveson Inquiry.

Cruise, the star of Top Gun and the Mission Impossible series of films, did not elaborate further but said elsewhere in the article that he was someone who would "stand up" to bullies.

During the interview with Playboy magazine, he was reminded of how he called a news channel on the night that Diana, Princess of Wales died, to complain that the intrusiveness of the media had got out of hand.

When the subject moved on to the phone-hacking scandal and he was asked "have you ever been hacked?", Cruise, 49, replied: "Maybe."

The actor was asked what he made of "this invasion of privacy" and replied: "I put that in a minor pile of things I have to handle. But with certain ones you have to go 'Okay, you crossed a line, and now you have the attention of my lawyers'."

Previous reports have indicated that Mark Lewis, the British lawyer for alleged phone hacking victims, counted a "Hollywood case" among three clients who will soon be filing lawsuits in the US.

Mr Lewis is not, however, representing Cruise

[Douglas Caddy]

After 7 Years, No End in Sight to Phone Hacking Scandal

By RAVI SOMAIYA

The New York Times

May 17, 2012

LONDON — The phone hacking scandal that shook Rupert Murdoch’s global media empire and hit the heart of the British government began quietly on a Monday in 2005, when aides to the British royal family gathered in a palace office appointed with priceless antiques to air suspicions that their voice mail messages had been intercepted.

Seven years and dozens of arrests later, the day after the latest criminal charges were brought, information from the police, prosecutors and investigators indicated Wednesday that the investigations are likely to go on for years, with no obvious end in sight.

Rebekah Brooks, the former editor of Mr. Murdoch’s Sun and News of the World tabloids, who rose to become chief executive of his British newspaper subsidiary, News International, and a close friend to Prime Minister David Cameron, was among the first to face criminal charges, the authorities announced Tuesday. Ms. Brooks, her husband and four former colleagues were accused of perverting the course of justice by removing materials pertinent to police investigations — charges she called “unjust.”

Ms. Brooks, who will appear in court on June 13, will most likely not be the last to face prosecution, the police and prosecutors said. There are three current police operations, Scotland Yard confirmed: Operation Weeting, which is examining illegal voice mail interceptions, currently employs 95 officers and staff members and has made 22 arrests; Operation Tuleta, which is looking into computer hacking, employs eight and has made three arrests; and Operation Elveden, which is exploring illegal payments by journalists to public officials, employs 29 and has made 28 arrests.

“It is difficult to give an end date,” said a police spokesman, who declined to be identified in line with policy. “We follow the evidence, and it’s impossible to say where it will lead. It’s safe to say it will last years.” A police budget for all the investigations into journalism extends into 2015, and anticipates that the cost will reach $64 million in total.

Criminal trials for central players in the scandal could air new information. Among those who could face charges is Andy Coulson, the former editor of The News of the World who later became Mr. Cameron’s director of communications.

If it is proved that those in Mr. Murdoch’s employ conspired to pay public officials to further business interests, experts say he could be at risk of sanctions in the United States under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Even a small fine would threaten to take the scandal across the Atlantic, and increase political pressure on Mr. Murdoch’s lucrative American interests.

A far-reaching British public inquiry, led by a senior judge, Lord Justice Brian Leveson, is running in parallel to the criminal investigations. It has elicited explosive testimony from Mr. Murdoch, his son James and their former senior executives and will continue into July with appearances by leading past and present politicians, said John Toker, a spokesman for the inquiry.

On the witness stand in the next two weeks will be Culture Minister Jeremy Hunt, who is accused of seeking to aid Mr. Murdoch’s bid to take over a British satellite broadcaster, BSkyB, instead of adjudicating it impartially.

It is unclear whether Mr. Cameron and his chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, will also give evidence on their relationships with the Murdoch family and company executives. Both officials have faced embarrassing allegations that dinners and parties with the Murdochs, including a gathering that Mr. Cameron attended on Mr. Murdoch’s yacht, reveal an inappropriate coziness that may have influenced the BSkyB deal.

The inquiry’s report will be released in October, Mr. Toker said, and the second part of the inquiry, focusing on the hacking scandal, will begin after criminal proceedings have ended.

Meanwhile, more than 100 civil lawsuits alleging illegal voice mail interceptions have been filed, according to court records. Many suits have been settled at an undisclosed cost, which could reach hundreds of millions of dollars in damages and legal fees. The police have said that there are likely more than 800 victims.

The judge overseeing the cases, Geoffrey Vos, set a trial date of Feb. 18, 2013, for any cases that are not settled out of court.

News International has also come under some pressure to waive legal privilege and allow the release of an internal dossier on hacking, compiled by the law firm BCL Burton Copeland in 2006, that might reveal whether senior executives knew of widespread illegality even as they said that hacking was limited to “one rogue reporter,” Clive Goodman, who was jailed in 2007. A News International spokeswoman declined to comment on the matter, and the law firm did not respond to messages.

“We’re now thinking in terms of years, not weeks or months,” said a News International official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal strategy. But the company may not be alone. Other allegations of phone hacking outside of Mr. Murdoch’s empire — including accusations that it took place at a large corporation — are likely to emerge, one person familiar with the investigations said.

[Douglas Caddy]

Rupert Murdoch denies claims that News Corp may sell UK newspapers

Mogul says News Corporation is 'firmly committed' to its papers including the Sun, Times and Sunday Times

Reuters

guardian.co.uk,

Saturday 19 May 2012 08.45 EDT

Rupert Murdoch has denied reports that News Corp is considering spinning off its British newspapers to protect the rest of his media empire from criminal scandals.

The Daily Telegraph and the Financial Times newspapers said executives at the company were looking into ways to split off the Sun, the Times and the Sunday Times, published by its News International unit.

However, Murdoch, the chief executive of News Corp, said in a statement: "News Corporation remains firmly committed to our publishing businesses, including News International, and any suggestion to the contrary is wholly inaccurate. Publishing is a core component of our future."

British police are examining claims that journalists at the News of the World – a paper shut by Murdoch last July – routinely hacked into the phones of hundreds of celebrities, politicians and victims of crime to generate front-page stories.

They are also investigating whether staff hacked into computers and made illegal payments to public officials, including the police, to get ahead in their reporting. Rebekah Brooks, a former senior executive of News International and editor of the News of the World, has been charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice.

The Daily Telegraph and the FT said News Corp was discussing putting the News International titles into a trust.

A News International spokeswoman denied the report, saying in a statement: "There are absolutely no plans to put News International into a separate trust."

Selling the newspapers to one or more wealthy individuals was another option under consideration, the FT said, quoting two people familiar with the company.

They noted no decisions had been made and a spin-off or a sale might not happen, the FT added.

The Daily Telegraph said a proposal to go into a joint venture with a media partner was also on the table, without citing its sources

[John Dolva]

I wonder what such a suggestion being leaked means. If it is at it seems it is a not unusual defence (of assets) which can be construed as an admission. It's really letting us know where the line in the sand is. The proper response is to push harder, now. (imo)

[Steve Knight]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/exclusive-extract-how-cameron-tried-to-evade-murdochs-embrace-7768831.html?google_editors_picks=true

Exclusive extract: How Cameron tried to evade Murdoch's embrace

In 2005, the Tories' new leader was determined to keep the media mogul at arm's length, but by 2007 the game was up, and Andy Coulson was on board. In their new book, Francis Elliott and James Hanning chart the dramatic change of plan

Francis Elliott , James Hanning

Sunday 20 May 2012

For the first 15 months after Cameron won the leadership election, his media team, led by George Eustice and with the support of Steve Hilton and Oliver Letwin, had adopted a strategy of arms' length engagement with the press. Hilton was among those who believed that no longer was the printed word a major leader of public opinion. People were now less deferential to thunderous editorials from on high. They made up their own minds, thank you.

Hilton and Eustice had sold the idea of a new arrangement with the press barons, whereby a greater, healthier distance was kept and the democratic process would be all the better for it. Television was to be the new battleground. There was to be "no more sucking up to Murdoch". It was a defiant and refreshing departure from the Tony Blair textbook.

There were to be other, tougher aspects of this new approach, and they had largely been vindicated, not least when a well-prepared Cameron outfoxed Jeremy Paxman during the leadership campaign. Cameron and his team had taken a muscularly non-committal approach to mounting calls to "come clean" on whether the leader had ever taken Class A drugs. Editors in supportive papers who offered to "do the drugs story sympathetically" were politely told that Cameron was allowed to have a past, before he became a politician, that was free of scrutiny.

In other words, Cameron's people expressed a novel "no thanks, we'll play this game our way" attitude. And it seemed to be working. In August 2006, the Tories had established a good lead in the polls. Such insolence was not appreciated by the Murdoch-owned Sun, which asserted in its leader column that Cameron did not deserve his lead. Murdoch's critics took this to mean "we have not endorsed him yet".

But the plan was to turn out to be no more than an experiment. By early 2007, the sunny hopes for a new politics were already fading. Cameron was struggling to convince a great many in his party that he was a Conservative at all, and with the Labour government anticipating a rise in their poll ratings with the expected accession of the comparatively untainted figure of Gordon Brown, the arms' length relationship with the Murdochs looked needlessly bold.

The previous summer he had made the notorious proclamation that became known as his "hug a hoodie" speech. The press reception had been hostile, but for Eustice and Hilton this was no more than was to be expected. "Yes, yes, we'll carry on," said Cameron, evidently less convinced than his aides. At their encouragement, "to show we wouldn't be bullied", as one confidant put it, he followed up with a speech of comparable tone and surprise value. Cameron was the object of yet more consternation from his natural supporters and their mouthpieces in the press. When his closest media advisers proposed a third such speech, Cameron, in a typically Cameronian way, said: "I'm sure you're right... but how much more of this do we have to do?"

To emphasise his declining faith in the new approach, he invited comparison with the never-say-die "invincible knight" from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, whose bravado led him to having all his limbs cut off but who insisted on shouting fatuously at his triumphant adversary: "Tis but a flesh wound!"

This was Cameron's lighthearted way of saying enough was enough. In fact, he felt things were getting very serious. With the austere but principled Gordon Brown waiting to sweep away the perception of Labour as polished but shallow, Cameron needed to be at the top of his game. Indeed, what would happen if Brown were to call an early election?

Cameron knew Brown had good relations with both Rupert Murdoch and Paul Dacre, editor-in-chief of the Daily Mail. Why should either newspaper group go against the personal preference of its most senior executive and endorse Cameron? Charlie Brooks, who at that point was at the start of his relationship with Rebekah Wade, told a friend that Rupert Murdoch – whose pedigree in picking winners was second to none – believed there would never be another Etonian in No 10 again. The thought occurred to Cameron that he could be out of his job by the end of the year.

"David got very tetchy at around that time," says Cameron's friend. "His apparent breezy confidence often hides a lack of exactly that, and David had a really major wobble that spring."

"We tested the new strategy to destruction," remembers George Eustice. "But the knowledge that Gordon Brown, the ultimate licker-of-the-boots of the Murdoch regime, was coming in meant that Cameron was likely to be portrayed as loftily out of touch rather than right, so we had to abandon the experiment. David stuck with my strategy as long as he could," remembers Eustice, "but having reluctantly abandoned the 'keep your distance' approach, he then embraced the 'OK, let's do what everyone else does', and let's do it properly stance."

Someone else close to Cameron's thinking added: "George Osborne in particular, and to a lesser extent Michael Gove, thought it was part of the New Labour playbook to get Murdoch on side. Keen on the traditional idea of wooing the media. We might not like it, it's just the way of the world. However unpleasant these people may be, however much you may not like them, you have to play their game and go to their parties."

So, notwithstanding Cameron's previous coolness to Murdoch, a legacy of Carlton TV's defeats at the Australian's hands, it was all systems go to get Murdoch on side. The brave talk ("We don't need bloody Murdoch!", as one of Cameron's strategists had put it privately) was set to one side, and every opportunity to impress News International was to be grasped with alacrity.

As luck (if that is the word) would have it, there seemed an admirable way of killing two birds with one stone close at hand, the appointment of Andy Coulson, who had recently resigned from the editorship of the News of the World.

For all his outward lack of concern, by 2008 David Cameron was becoming worried about the phone-hacking story. With the next election still a couple of years away, according to a friend of Cameron, the leader asked Coulson outright if he had known anything about the phone hacking, to which he replied: "Categorically not."

In a private context, he also asked people with extensive dealings in newspaper regulation, who he had good reason to believe would be familiar with the workings of the grubbier end of Fleet Street. In good faith, it is fair to assume, they too reassured him that he had little to worry about.

When, in August 2008, Cameron and his family were invited to visit Rupert Murdoch's yacht Rosehearty, the flights to Santorini were paid for by Matthew Freud (which concerned some of Cameron's advisers more than it did him). For Freud, this was the ultimate piece of political matchmaking. This was jet-setting of the old school.

But in a private one-on-one, Cameron asked Murdoch directly about the continued rumblings about his press chief. Murdoch replied that, as far as he was concerned, the police knew everything. There was no new evidence of wrongdoing. He blamed his political enemies in the British media for stirring up trouble.

The trouble was that the "stirring" didn't stop. The House of Commons Select Committee for Culture, Media and Sport spent a considerable amount of time investigating media standards, eventually concluding that it was "inconceivable" that none of the News of the World employees past and present had known about the phone hacking and accused senior executives of suffering from "collective amnesia".

Cameron was to seek assurances from Murdoch again before the 2010 election, and Murdoch's answer was the same. In that case, said Cameron, he would stand by Andy and make sure the "witch hunt" was unsuccessful. The Murdoch reassurance chimed with Cameron, whose cast of mind inclined him to believe that if the police had found nothing, there must be nothing there.

But a slight switch to how Cameron responded to questions about Coulson was introduced. As a close colleague says: "When there's a bit of doubt, the position shifts, the language changes." And so it did on this occasion. Previously, on the rare occasions he had been asked, he would offer a vague suggestion that he was led to believe Coulson knew nothing about the phone hacking. But now, on 10 July 2009, the words "I believe in giving people a second chance" received their first airing.

By 2009, the Tories began to show a new antipathy to the BBC, floating the freezing of the licence fee and urging the corporation to "do more with less". The Tories and the Murdochs shared a striking identity of interests. With the Tories looking good in the polls, what more could the media empire ask for?

Just a few weeks later, at the most damaging of moments for Labour (ie, during its conference), The Sun announced it was to support the Conservatives in the next election. But still the phone-hacking story wouldn't go away.

Representations were believed to have been made by senior courtiers at Buckingham Palace, which had always been unhappy at Coulson working by Cameron's side in opposition, but hitherto had been pacified by Coulson's intention to find another job after the election, according to an unimpeachable royal source. The Palace insists the Queen herself did not initiate an attempt to influence Downing Street staffing, but acknowledges the possibility that Cameron's circle was sent a message informally about the feelings of the Royal Household about the prospect of the former News of the World editor in Downing Street.

Expressions of concern were also made to Cameron's office, at least, by Nick Clegg, Lord Ashdown, Zac Goldsmith, Sir Max Hastings, Daily Mail editor-in-chief Paul Dacre and others. And a more surprising voice spoke to him to question whether Coulson should follow his master into Downing Street: that of Coulson himself, who worried that he was becoming an embarrassment to Cameron.

Cameron waved his concerns away – he needed him, he was coming to Downing Street. It was a terrible mistake for both of them. Had Coulson left at the election, the interest in hacking might have largely died away. His presence at the heart of Britain's government, however, redoubled determination to expose the truth.

On 1 September 2010, The New York Times published a lengthy account of the extent of phone hacking at News International. Cameron was lobbied yet again by those who felt he was being overgenerous to Coulson, and told a friend at the time: "I can't go round sacking people on hearsay. There's no evidence against Andy." But he did also say to a close friend at the time: "If it does turn out he's been lying to me, he'll be out of here tomorrow."

But while Cameron toughed it out, there had been a change of attitude inside News International. Emails emerged that, it was reported, showed much wider knowledge of unlawful activity than had been previously admitted.

At around this time, with Murdoch furious at not having been told the full extent of what had been going on, it was made known to Cameron that he should no longer feel obliged to protect Coulson. In fact, Coulson had been telling an unheeding Cameron for some months that he felt he should stand down, and on 21 January he resigned as director of communications.

Extracted from 'Cameron: Practically a Conservative' by Francis Elliott and James Hanning, published by Fourth Estate, £10.99. Copyright Francis Elliott and James Hanning, 2012