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Andy Coulson Rebekah Brooks Phone-Hacking Trial

Phone-hacking trial: The defence strikes back

By James Doleman

December 18, 2013 | 5 min read

Court resumed this afternoon with Jonathan Laidlaw, QC for Rebekah Brooks, continuing to cross-examine detective constable Oskieicz on the police schedule of "tasking orders" found at the home of convicted phone-hacker Glenn Mulcaire. Laidlaw reminded the jury that around 6,000 pages of papers were seized, 5,600 relate to tasking and 3,400 have a name of the alleged tasker written in the top left corner. Laidlaw then showed an example where pages had been stapled together when found by police. The QC asked Oskieicz if it was likely that stapled together pages related to each other in some way, to which the police officer agreed.

Court: Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson are on trial

Laidlaw then told the court that he had a number of suggestions for amending the police schedule document, removing tasking documents from the folder relating to his client and placing them in other sections, telling the court that he did not want to be critical of the police and that these were "innocent mistakes". The QC also argued that "tasking orders" which did not include a mobile number should also be disregarded. This would remove a further 307 of the remaining 550 "taskings" from the period when Brooks was editor of the News of the World.

Laidlaw then questioned if the police had properly interpreted what Mulciare was being asked to do in each note, saying that for "category one" documents "it cannot be stated with any firmness, from what is written, that there is any hacking or blagging being asked for". DC Oskieicz agreed that this was the case, at which point Andrew Edis QC, for the Crown, intervened, saying "two can play at that game" and objecting "just because it doesn't say anything about hacking does not mean that it didn't happen."

Mr Justice Saunders ruled that as long as the officer just expressed his opinion he would allow the question. The officer explained that category two showed evidence of blagging, getting information through fraud, and category three showed evidence of hacking that could also be linked to a story in the News of the World.

Laidlaw then put it to the policeman that of 407 taskings from the period when Brooks was editor of the News of the World, 218 were category one, 176 category two and 13 category three. The officer agreed that tied in with his analysis. Laidlaw then went through each of the category three documents one by one, pointing to what he suggested were further mistakes on how the police had interpreted them.

In one example in a document relating to Charlotte Church, the defence barrister suggested, the newspaper story the police had linked to hacking - headlined "Charlotte Was on the Gravy Plane" - contained no information which could not have come from another source and had nothing that related to Mulcaire's notes. In all, Laidlaw said he would be challenging the accuracy of nine of the 13 category three documents.

The defence barrister then brought into evidence a document prepared by his team called "Mulcaire notes analysis", which he used to further challenge the prosecution's interpretation of the convicted phone-hacker's notes. He used the example of entries connected to singer Will Young, which mention telephone analysis, and questioned if this could have involved something other than hacking.

The court then took a short break while documents were located and printed.

When the trial resumed, Mr Laidlaw apologised to the jury for the "hard going" and after briefly questioning the relationship of another two stories the prosecution say were related to hacking, he sat down.

Timothy Langdale QC, for Andy Coulson then rose to question the police officer about parts of the schedule covering the period when his client was editing the newspaper. He put it to the officer that it was impossible to be sure that, even when a story coincided with a hack from Mulcaire, it was solely sourced from an intercepted voicemail. DC Oskieicz agreed that it was a matter of interpretation but that was his view.

Langdale then pointed to a number of undated Mulcaire notes which the officer explained happened when no date or only a partial date could be recovered. The QC asked if this meant these hacks could have happened at any time between 2000 and 2006 and the officer agreed that it did.

Court then rose for the day, all of the defendants deny all of the charges, the trial continues.

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