By JOHN F. BURNS and RAVI SOMAIYA 17 minutes ago
Prosecutors said they would charge Andy Coulson, the British prime
minister’s former media director, and Rebekah Brooks, the ex- chief of
Rupert Murdoch’s British newspaper business, in a phone hacking scandal.
Alison Levitt QC: "This statement is made in the interests of transparency and accountability."
Eight
people, including Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson, will face a total of
19 charges relating to phone hacking, the Crown Prosecution Service has
said.
The two ex-News of the World editors are to be charged in
connection with the accessing of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler's
phone messages.
They are among seven of the now-defunct paper's former staff facing charges of conspiring to intercept voicemails.
The CPS said the charges related to 600 alleged victims between 2000 and 2006.
The others facing charges are former News of the World (NoW)
managing editor Stuart Kuttner, former news editor Greg Miskiw, former
assistant editor Ian Edmondson, former chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck,
former assistant editor James Weatherup and private investigator Glenn
Mulcaire.
The eight, who will be charged when they answer police bail, are due to appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court on 16 August.
The revelation that 13-year-old Milly's phone had been hacked
by the NoW after she went missing in Surrey in 2002 led to the closure
of the Sunday tabloid newspaper in July last year.
'Upsetting'
Mrs Brooks, who is also a former chief executive of the
paper's publisher News International, faces three charges relating to
the alleged accessing of phones belonging to Milly and former Fire
Brigades Union boss Andrew Gilchrist.
In a statement, Mrs Brooks said: "I am not guilty of these
charges. I did not authorise, nor was I aware of, phone hacking under
my editorship."
Continue reading the main story
Phone-hacking timeline
- September 2010: Scotland Yard faces pressure to reopen
phone-hacking investigation as celebrities launch legal actions for
answers
- April 2011: Officers from Operation Weeting, the re-opened investigation, make three arrests
- July 2011: Rupert Murdoch closes down the News of the World
after 168 years of publication. The same month, its former editor Andy
Coulson is arrested, followed by Rebekah Brooks two weeks later. Other
journalists are arrested during the course of the year
- November 2011: The Leveson Inquiry opens in London
- July 2012: Met Police say 74 people arrested to date, 26 in
connection with Operation Weeting. Seven journalists and one private
investigator charged in relation to phone hacking
She added that the charge
concerning Milly was "particularly upsetting, not only as it is untrue
but also because I have spent my journalistic career campaigning for
victims of crime".
Mr Coulson, who also used to be Prime Minister David
Cameron's communications chief, will face four charges linked to
accusations of accessing the phone messages of Milly, former Labour home
secretaries David Blunkett and Charles Clarke, and Calum Best, the son
of the late footballer George Best.
He told reporters he would fight the allegations and said
anyone who had worked with him "would know that I wouldn't, and more
importantly, that I didn't do anything to damage the Milly Dowler
investigation".
"At the News of the World we worked on behalf of the victims
of crime, particularly violent crime, and the idea that I would then sit
in my office dreaming up schemes to undermine investigations is simply
untrue," he added.
BBC chief political correspondent Norman Smith says many
people will now be pondering how the PM came to appoint someone to his
inner circle who had these question marks against him.
It will not be a short, sharp difficulty but a long, slow
protracted problem for the government with the build-up to the court
case and the trial itself likely to go on for months, he says.
Mr Cameron will be concerned about the bolt-from-the-blue
factor - not knowing what will emerge from the court case, our
correspondent adds.
'Surprised'
A solicitor for Mr Kuttner said his client "utterly refutes" the charges.
Mr Thurlbeck said he was "most surprised and disappointed" and would "vigorously fight to clear my reputation".
And Mr Edmondson said he had "much to say on this subject and
I now look forward to saying it" and that he would clear his name at
trial.
Andy Coulson, Rebekah Brooks and Neville Thurlbeck are among the eight facing charges.
All of the suspects apart from Mulcaire will be charged with
conspiring to intercept communications without lawful authority between
October 3, 2000, and August 9, 2006.
The charge carries a sentence of up to two years in prison or a fine.
Mulcaire, who was jailed in January 2007 after he admitted
unlawfully intercepting voicemail messages received by three royal aides
while working for the NoW, faces four unspecified charges relating to
Milly, Mr Gilchrist, Delia Smith, and Charles Clarke.
He said he was "extremely disappointed by today's decision
given that in 2006 I was the subject of a comprehensive police
investigation on this matter".
"I subsequently pleaded guilty and served the prison sentence imposed on me by the court," he added.
"I intend to contest these allegations strenuously."
Prosecutors will allege that more than 600 people, including
Hollywood actors Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, were victims of the phone
hacking conspiracy, the CPS indicated.
Other alleged victims named in connection with the charges
were former England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson, television stars Abi
Titmuss and John Leslie, chef Delia Smith, actors Jude Law, Sadie Frost
and Sienna Miller, and footballer Wayne Rooney.
Decision deferred
The CPS said that no further action would be taken in relation
to three other suspects, former NoW reporter Ross Hall, sports reporter
Raoul Simons and Terenia Taras, a former partner of Greg Miskiw.
Police have asked the CPS to defer making a decision over two
remaining suspects who have been re-bailed while officers make further
inquiries.
The BBC understands they are former News of the World deputy editor Neil Wallis and Dan Evans, who was a reporter on the paper.
Mrs Brooks was editor of the News of the World from 2000 to
2003, when she became editor of the Sun, before rising to become News
International chief executive. She resigned from her position in July
2011.
She already also faces three charges of perverting the course
of justice arising from the investigation into phone hacking - charges
she has denied.
Mr Coulson was NoW editor between 2003 and 2007. He later
became Prime Minister David Cameron's spokesman but quit in January
2011.
16 May 2012
Last updated at 01:53 GMT
Rebekah Brooks expresses anger after being charged with
conspiracy to pervert the course of justice as part of the phone-hacking
inquiry.
Rebekah Brooks: "I received some indirect commiserations from politicans"
Prime Minister David Cameron sent Rebekah Brooks a "keep your head up" message when she quit News International, she has said.
Mrs Brooks told the Leveson Inquiry she got "indirect
messages" from a number of Tories but ex-PM Gordon Brown was "probably
getting the bunting out".
She quit as chief executive in July 2011 after the phone-hacking scandal led to the News of the World's closure.
Mrs Brooks is being asked about her relationships with politicians.
Asked by counsel to the inquiry, Robert Jay QC, if Mr Cameron
had sent her a "keep your head up" message she said it had been
"something along those lines".
Mrs Brooks - who was News of the World editor when voicemails
of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler's mobile phone were allegedly
intercepted - said she had received "indirect" rather than direct text
messages from a number of politicians after she resigned as chief
executive of News International.
They included messages from "Number 10, Number 11, the Home Office and the Foreign Office" and former Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Asked about her relationship with News Corporation executive
chairman Rupert Murdoch, she said "in the main, on the big issues we had
similar views" but they disagreed over issues including the
environment, immigration and font size.
She said she preferred more celebrities in the paper while he wanted more serious issues.
"We only have to look at viewing figures to see it's the
reality programmes that do so well, I took from those figures that our
readers were quite interested in it.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
He did not have a mobile phone or in fact, I think, use a computer when he was prime minister”
Rebekah Brooks on Tony Blair
She said Mr Murdoch thought there was too much celebrity culture in the paper "although he liked X Factor".
Mr Murdoch had thrown her a surprise 40th birthday, she said,
attended by then-Prime Minister Tony Blair but said she could not
remember if then-opposition leader David Cameron had been there.
She said she spoke to Mr Murdoch "very frequently" but denied reports they went swimming together when he was in London.
The inquiry heard she became close friends with Tony Blair
and his wife Cherie, as well as his spin doctor Alastair Campbell and
his partner.
But she said she did not exchange texts or emails with Mr
Blair because "he did not have a mobile phone or in fact, I think, use a
computer when he was prime minister".
And she said she was never friends with Mr Blair's successor
at number 10, Gordon Brown, but was acquainted with his "extraordinary"
wife, Sarah.
Asked whose side she was on in the long-running feud between
Mr Brown and Mr Blair, she said she was "on the side of my readers".
But she added that in the 2006 "curry house coup" - where a
group of MPs agreed to call for Mr Blair's resignation, "we did take Mr
Blair's side because the country was on ice because of the hostilities".
March arrest
The phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World Sunday
tabloid led to its closure and the establishment of the Leveson Inquiry,
an MPs' inquiry and the launch of three police investigations.
Continue reading the main story
Rebekah Brooks has been described at the inquiry as a powerful personality.
At a hearing which is determined to be neutral, she's likely
to be asked about her relationships with Tony Blair - the papers she ran
backed him through three elections; and Gordon Brown - she was once Mr
Brown's guest at a pyjama party at the prime minister's country
residence.
Mrs Brooks' account will turn from historically interesting
to potentially politically potent when she deals with the current prime
minister.
There have been suggestions he texted her up to 12 times a
day and told her to "keep her head up" after she resigned last year.
The veracity of such claims will soon be clear.
So too the damage, if any, that the testimony of Rebekah Brooks will inflict on the standing of David Cameron.
Mrs Brooks has denied any knowledge of phone hacking on her watch.
Questioned by MPs in 2011, she said News International had acted "quickly and decisively" in dealing with the hacking scandal.
She said she had never sanctioned payments to the police.
Mrs Brooks was arrested on 17 July 2011 over phone-hacking and corruption allegations.
She was released on bail and re-arrested on 13 March 2012 on suspicion of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.
She was bailed again to appear at a London police station in May 2012.
Inquiry lawyers will not be allowed to ask Mrs Brooks any
questions that could prejudice the police investigation into phone
hacking or any future trials.
Tony Blair is one of several high profile politicians who will be appearing at the inquiry this week
Rupert Murdoch and his wife Wendi Deng asked Tony Blair to be godfather to their daughter Grace
