The trial of former journalists accused of phone-hacking opened in London on Wednesday, the defendants including Prime Minister David Cameron’s ex-press secretary Andy Coulson.
The former chief executive of Rupert Murdoch’s News International, Rebekah Brooks, is also among the eight accused who face a range of charges related to the phone-hacking scandal. They all deny the accusations.
Both Brooks and Coulson are former editors of News of the World, a tabloid which shut in 2011 after revelations that its journalists had hacked the voicemails of a murdered schoolgirl, Milly Dowler, as well as politicians, celebrities and other crime victims.
Prosecutor Andrew Edis told the court that the paper had paid private investigator Glenn Mulcaire to carry out phone hacking and that former royal correspondent Clive Goodman and the paper’s former head of news Ian Edmondson also took part.
At stake was “quite a simple issue,” he said. “There was phone hacking — who knew?” “The prosecution says that it is important in a free country that there is a free press,” he continued. “But the prosecution says that journalists are no more entitled to break the criminal law than anybody else.” Brooks and Coulson, both 45, also face charges of conspiring to commit misconduct in public office, accusations linked to the payment of public officials for stories.
Among the allegations, prosecutors say that Brooks authorised payments totalling 40,000 pounds ($ 64,000) to an employee at the Ministry of Defence.
She also faces charges of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, along with her husband Charles Brooks, former personal assistant Cheryl Carter, and former head of security at News International Mark Hanna for hiding evidence from the police investigation.
Private investigator Mulcaire and three other News of the World journalists have already pleaded guilty to phone-hacking charges.