Phone-hacking trial: Beauty, boxes and flying to Australia

Carter told the court she had been married for 27 years and has two children. The defendant told the court she worked at News International for 17 years before taking voluntary redundancy in 2011. While at school, she told the jury, she was friends with actor Ross Kemp, who later married Brooks, but she was not involved in introducing them. The defendant told the court she began her career at the Mirror group as a messenger and then as assistant to the editor. In 1995, Carter told the court, she met Brooks through a friend, Phil Hall, and became her personal assistant in 1996, a post she held until Brooks' resignation. "I looked after her office and private life as best as I could," Carter told the jury, dealing with banking, holidays etc. "I did what I could to make her life smooth," she said.

The former PA was asked about her working relationship with Brooks. Carter said that the former editor always texted or emailed her instructions "so there was a record", adding "even if I was standing beside her she would text or email her." The witness said that she would not update Brooks about her daily activities, "she would just email me and I got on with it." "Did she ever ask you to account for what you were doing," the defence QC asked. "Never," Carter replied. The defendant also told the court that Brooks rarely used notebooks and instead kept notes on an A5 sheet on her desk which was replaced weekly with the used one being thrown away. "That was my job," Carter added.

The defendant was asked about various office moves that she and Brooks made during her career at News International. Carter said the process was that Brooks would leave things up to her, she would pack up the paperwork, throw out items that were not required and then arrange to have the boxes picked up. "Did Rebekah Brooks have any role in this," the defence lawyer asked. "No, it was left to me," Carter replied. Asked about her working day, the defendant said she worked from around 8am to 5pm but was "always on call" in case she was required. Brooks, the defendant said, "was hard working herself so expected everyone else to work hard". She denied any suggestion she was "in fear" of Brooks, agreeing that she could "stand up for herself" when required. "I was the eyes and ears of the newspaper," Carter said and added that she would tell Brooks if she thought her boss was being "too hard" on other employees.

Carter told the court that while working for Brooks she took a beauty course on Saturdays with the aim of opening a salon at News International, a project that was shelved after budget cuts. When Brooks married Ross Kemp, Carter said, she helped him out with various tasks including dealing with his "fan mail". She also was very close to Brooks' mother, Deborah Weir. "She was like as second mum to me," Carter said and she assisted Weir with buying a car and dealing with financial issues. When Brooks became editor of the Sun, Carter told the court, Deborah Keegan joined her as a second PA to cover the "early shift" before Carter came to work. "The phones rang off the hook," Carter told the court "one minute you could be talking to number 10, the next a celebrity". The former PA also dealt with Brooks' post but not her email account. "She had total control of her own emails?" defence counsel asked. "Absolutely," the defendant replied. Carter did have access to Brooks' bank PIN and would often withdraw money for her, the court was told.

The jury was then shown copies of Carter's beauty column in the Sun. "Various PR companies would send me products and I would review them and decide if I should put them in the paper," Carter said, telling the court she received an extra £7,000 a year for the articles. "I didn't want a lot of money as I felt so privileged," she added. The defendant said she would cut out articles from other publications and paste them into a large notebook. These she kept, along with her coursework from college, in a filing cabinet in the office. Carter told the jury by 2009, when Brooks was appointed CEO of News International, there were nine years' worth of these notebooks stored there. In 2005, Carter said, she and a friend launched their own range of beauty products called "Famous" which was stocked in high street shops.

Burke then moved on to Brooks' appointment as News International chief executive in September 2009. "It was amazing for her but I didn't want to go, I'm an editorial person and I don't think I was cut out to be an executive PA," Carter said. Despite her misgivings, the defendant said, she agreed to give it a go and received a £17,000 pay rise by Brooks to match the salary of James Murdoch's PA. One consequence of this, Carter said, was that she would not be allowed to take her beauty samples and cuttings to the new office so "I did a lot more from home".

The defendant was then asked about the move she made from the Sun's offices to News International's corporate floor. "They cut Mr Rupert Murdoch's office in half," to accommodate Brooks, Carter said and there was not a great deal of storage space. In order to carry out the move, the defendant said she ordered some boxes from the archive department. "I knew I had five cupboards of beauty materials and I didn't want to take them home." On the Sunday before the move, Carter told the court, she and the other PA. Deborah Keegan, went to the office to sort out what needed to moved, what needed to be archived and what needed to be thrown out. The defence QC asked if Brooks had been aware that this was happening. "No," Carter said, and denied they even discussed it. Carter said she put her own notebooks into the archive boxes as she "did not want to throw it out".

The jury was then shown boxes of the same size as the ones in question and Carter confirmed those were she had placed her beauty notebooks as well as a small number of items belonging to Brooks. Carter told the court that no one else was involved in filling the boxes and agreed that anything put in them was her responsibility alone. The defendant was asked if she filled in any paperwork when transferring the boxes to the archive. "No," Carter said. The court was then shown a "records transfer list" which listed the contents of the boxes as "Notebooks, Brooks nee Wade 1995-2007". Carter said she had never seen the list before but had put a "post it note" containing that description on one of the boxes. "It was a Sunday and we were not being paid overtime, I wanted to get home so I stuck a post-it note on it just to get rid of them," Carter said adding, "they were my notebooks and a few of Rebekah's".

The court then took a short break.

When proceedings resumed Trevor Burke QC asked his client why she did not write that the boxes contained her materials. "I was under the impression that a PA or secretary could not archive things under their own name." Asked if she had ever mentioned the boxes to Brooks, Carter said "no", adding if she did Brooks "would have thought I was mad". After the boxes were taken away, Carter said, she gave them no further thought and had never needed to retrieve any of the contents. When Brooks moved offices in 2010, to the new headquarters in Thomas Moore square, Carter had a number of items of "memorabilia" such as framed football shirts and a large portrait of James Murdoch put into storage at the archive.

The defendant was asked about her plan to emigrate to Perth, Australia with her family. Asked if she had ever spoken to Rebekah Brooks about this Carter said "no, she was my boss and I didn't want to let her down." The family, the court has already heard, had already obtained a visa and were planning to move after she resigned from News International. Carter told the court that she told Brooks in August 2011 and that her former boss paid for the family's flights. Carter denied this was a "reward for hiding the boxes" and instead was a "generous reaction" from someone who she had worked with for 17 years.

The defence counsel then moved on to July 2011 when the seven boxes were removed from the archive. Carter said she received an email from the archivist, Nick Mayes, asking what he should do with various items stored there as the archive was moving. Carter said she interpreted this as Mayes "wanting all of our stuff out of the archive". The defendant asked "do I have to do the swear word?" and instead told the court her reaction was "for F's sake, what are we going to do with all that stuff," which included silver cutlery that had been purchased by Charlie Brooks from News International's executive dining room.

Carter was then asked when she found out that the News of the World was closing and she replied it was on the 7 July when it was announced by James Murdoch. On the same morning, the court was told, first contacted the archive and asked about her seven boxes. The defendant told the court that she was involved in a copyright dispute over her brand of beauty products and had thought that there might be useful information in the boxes she could give to her lawyers. On the next day, after the closure announcement, the defendant agreed she had emailed Nick Mayes from the archive and he had then called her back. Carter told the court she had not asked for the boxes to be delivered urgently and had not requested they arrive on the same day. Carter went to retrieve the boxes that afternoon while Brooks was out of the office having a "town hall" meeting with staff.

Court then rose for the day

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