Phone-hacking trial: Memories, number one contacts and rubber stamps

Andrew Edis QC, for the prosecution, continued his cross-examination of the defendant by asking about the conviction of former News of the World royal reporter Clive Goodman for phone hacking, which he funded through cash payments to private investigator Glenn Mulcaire. The witness agreed she became aware in 2007 that this was the case but her main concern was the phone hacking, not cash payments. Edis suggested that the solution to this problem would have been "knowing who was getting what and what for". Brooks replied again that her overwhelming concern was the phone hacking and that fact that cash payments could be open to abuse was not what she took from the Goodman case.

The defendant was then asked about a 2006 email from the day before Goodman pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey asking for a £4,500 cash payment. Brooks told the court she was not involved in the Goodman trial but agreed she would have known Goodman was planning on pleading guilty. The witness told the court that the journalist involved was very experienced and said again she had no idea his contact was a public official. The stories were "good value for money," the defendant told the court. "Did you think at all if the source was a public official," the prosecution barrister asked. "My assumption was it was not a public official," Brooks replied. Andrew Edis asked again if in the "60 seconds between receiving the email and approving the payment did you think about it", to which the defendant replied: "Probably not, as my assumption was that it wasn't."

The witness was then shown a Sun story from 2006 - "William's major killed in Afghanistan" - and the prosecution barrister asked: "What was it that made this such a belting exclusive splash?" Brooks replied: "The Sun was the first paper to connect the story to Prince William." Edis pointed out that the death of Major Roberts was the subject of an MOD press release and therefore, why had she agreed to pay £3000 for the information? Brooks replied that it was the "level of detail" involved that was worth the money. Edis suggested that in fact what the paper was paying for was "to get the story before anyone else" and there was no public interest in the story coming out a day early. "There was only a commercial interest for your newspaper," the prosecution barrister said. The defendant agreed that there was no public interest justification in paying a public official to get the story first. "If I had known this involved paying a public official I would't have sanctioned it," she added.

The prosecuting barrister then asked the witness to move forward to 2009 and showed the court an email from a journalist, who we cannot name for legal reasons, to Brooks asking for a £3,500 payment to his "number one military contact". One of the stories is about a female army captain who lost a leg in an explosion in Afghanistan and Edis asked if "the exclusive part of the story was her name?" Brooks replied: "I think her name and and other details, it might have been what he was asking for money for." Edis asked Brooks that if the story came from one source it must have been an "exceptionally well placed source". Brooks replied that stories came from many sources and the original one may be not even mentioned in the article.

The Crown QC asked about another email from the journalist, again asking for payment for four stories that came from his "number one military contact". Brooks agreed that none of these stories passed her test of being enough in the public interest to justifying paying a public official for them. Edis pointed out that it only took Brooks two minutes to approve the payment and suggested "you were really just acting as a rubber stamp". "Yes," Brooks replied. Edis pointed out that she had already said that the journalist involved had hundreds of sources, "but this was his best, what sort of person could it have been, it was unlikely to be a retired Colonel in Aldershot." Brooks said it was not clear who it could have been, giving the example of a former senior officer who, as as well as writing under his own name, also sold information.

Edis then asked the defendant if she never connected all of these "number one military contact emails together". Brooks replied that there were many things going on, and there were usually a couple of months between the journalist making payment requests. "I don't particularly remember thinking that at the time," she said, but the defendant accepted it would have been logical to put them together. "I did know he [the jourmalist] had good sources in that area, some of which he paid, and some he didn't."

The next story, about Sandhurst military academy from the "number one military contact" three weeks later, was shown to the court and Brooks was asked that surely she must have realised it was odd that the contact was able to get stories both from abroad and from Sandhurst. Brooks said that had not occured to her as the paper ran thousands of military stories a year and the journalist was very experienced. "You've decided not to do your job as he was doing his," the prosecution barrister suggested. "It just never occurred to me it was a public official," the defendant said. Edis replied "anyone reading these emails could see there was an obvious risk it was a public official". Brooks said she had never seen the emails "all together". The prosecutor suggested to the witness that she became editor because "you were good at it, your job was to remember what was in the paper". The defendant said that "it was sometimes hard to remember what was in the paper last week, not that I'm saying I've got a bad memory but that was the pace I worked under".

The final story in this section was an article about a reserve soldier who died of swine flu. Brooks told the court that this may have been in the public interest if it involved a "cover-up" but accepted that later events showed this was not the case. The prosecuting QC suggested that the defendant had on this occasion paid out £4000 for stories she agreed had never been paid. "I would never have authorised these payments if I'd known it was a public official." Edis said to the witness that nowhere in any of the emails does anyone mention the public interest. "No," Brooks replied. "You never weighed up the public interest in any of this did you," Edis said. "I did not know it was a public official," the defendant insisted. "It never occurred to you, is that the case," the prosecutor asked. "No it didn't," the witness replied.

Court then adjourned until 10am tomorrow.

All of the defendants deny all of the charges, the trial continues.