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Phone-hacking trial: Rebekah Brooks defence 'preposterous,' prosecutor tells court

By James Doleman

May 7, 2014 | 8 min read

    Andrew Edis QC

  • Phone hacker paid £92k a year despite budget deficit
  • "Common knowledge" Mulcaire worked for paper
  • Reading News of the World "hardly War and Peace"
  • Cheryl Carter story "preposterous"
  • Brooks settled with Max Clifford to avoid hacker naming names
  • After the lunch break, the jury took their seats to hear the next section of lead prosecutor, Andrew Edis QC's, closing argument. The barrister began by showing the jury documents that showed convicted phone hacker Glenn Mulcaire had done work for the News of the World's "Sarah's Law" campaign. This, Edis said, was a campaign being overseen personally by then editor Rebekah Brooks so how, he suggested, could she have been unaware of his existence?

    The QC then asked the jury to look back to 2001 when the News of the World, edited then by Brooks, "had a budget problem, income was down, expenses were up and there was a shortfall of about £6m." Yet, Edis said, it was in this year Mulcaire was put on a retainer of £92,000 per year. "There were not many people at the News of the World earning that much, and it was approved by Mrs Brooks," he said.

    Edis then moved on August 2001 when the paper was interested in actor Jude Law and Mulcaire hacked the phone of his former partner Sadie Frost. In an invoice, shown to the jury Mulcaire describ his service as "research and information" which was also the term used in the later exclusive contract between the News of the World and the hacker. "That's probably not surveillance," Edis said, "Research and information doesn't tell you what they're paying all that money for, there was only one reason for using that neutral term, because you can't write down what he is actually doing," he added.

    The prosecutor then reminded the jury about a 2002 sports story in the News of the World that named Glenn "Trigger" Mulcaire as working for the paper's investigations department. "They both [Coulson and Brooks] say the didn't read it," Edis said. "They say the didn't read budgets but you might have thought the editors might at least read the paper," he added. "We've seen it, it's hardly War and Peace." The barrister said and addded that even if neither had ever read the paper the story showed it was common knowledge that Mulcaire worked for the paper. "Everyone knew it, it wasn't something that needed to be hidden."

    The prosecutor then quickly ran through hacking events in 2002, 2003 2004 and 2005. He also suggested that the success of the David Blunkett story, which the newsdesk had obtained through Mulcaire's hacking, led the features desk to hire Dan Evans to also hack phones "so they could catch up". Edis said: "I don't think Mr Coulson ever explained why Evans was hired as other than hacking it is hard to see what he brought to the party" he added.

    The jury was then shown what he called a "very significant document," in an email to Coulson and Kuttner in which a journalist complains about paying money to "Greg's investigation man [Mulcaire]" adding "If I've said this once I've said it a million times". "There is a row going on," Edis said, and asked: "It's being kicked around all spring. Is it credible that the people having this argument don't know what they're arguing about?" The prosecutor continued,"someone wins this argument", pointing out the journalist "was over-ruled". The QC told the jury that "only the editor" could have made that decision. Looking at the hacking of Gordon Taylor, Edis quipped: "Isn't it funny how all these journalists only managed to hack people who are of no interest to the editor."

    The court then took a short break.

    When the jury returned the prosecution barrister showed them a budget document from 2006 which initially proposed a 25 per cent cut in Mulcaire's remuneration but ended up splitting this up into two separate payments. "An accounting trick," Edis suggested, to hide the fact that there had been no cut. 2006, Edis suggested, was a "big year for phone hacking" which included the royal household, John Prescott, Calum Best and Mail of Sunday journalists. This was also the year, the barrister reminded the jury, that "in this harmonious organisation" Mulcaire began hacking the phones of Coulson and Brooks. When Goodman was arrested, in September 2006, "the first instinct of the paper was to cover it up" and after Goodman was released from prison Rebekah Brooks offered him a job. "It was gross misconduct," Edis suggested, why did the then Sun editor get involved. "There was one thing going on in public and in private everything was going on as before" he suggested.

    The prosecutor then turned to July 2009 when the Guardian ran a story that phone hacking had been far more widespread than previously reported. This was followed up by a New York Times story in 2010 alleging Dan Evans had been suspended for phone hacking. "What did Mrs Brooks do," Edis asked. "Nothing, he stayed on full pay until the paper closed." On 4 July 2011, Edis reminded the jury, the Milly Dowler story broke in the Guardian leading to "panic stations" at News International.

    Edis then turned to count six on the indictment, the charge against Cheryl Carter and Rebekah Brooks of removing seven boxes of documents from the News International archive to conceal them from police on the 8 July 2011. "It was the last Friday in the life of the News of the World," Edis said. "A day no-one was likely to forget." The prosecutor showed a box of the same size to the jury and asked "what was in them?" The jury was shown the "record transfer form" in which the word "notebooks" appears nine times. "She knew as the roof fell in on the News of the World the conduct of Rebekah Brooks was going to come under investigation," especially as the Milly Dowler hacking fell under her period of editing the paper.

    Edis reminded the jury that Carter had told the court she had said the boxes contained Brooks' notebooks because she did not think as a PA she could archive her own material. "Why?" Edis asked. She was personal assistant to the CEO, the person who was in charge "in most places the archivist does what the CEO tells them to do, not the other way round." Turning to a story Brooks told about Carter being "scatty" and telling Rupert Murdoch that she was visiting MFI not MI5: "What was that performance about MI5 really about", Edis asked. He added: "It's quite a funny joke, it always had been", he said, before going on to call the story "preposterous".

    Edis also noted that when Coulson resigned, his PA had also taken documents home a coincidence that the prosecutor called "quite peculiar". The story, Edis said, that on that day, when the paper was closing, Carter had a quiet moment to do some filing was "total rubbish", asking the jury to consider that it must have been connected with the events going on. "You don't muck around with the boss's property without her permission," he added.

    The prosecution barrister ended the day by showing the jury a memo of 2010 meeting where Brooks and others discuss Max Clifford's court case against the News of the World for hacking his phone. The jury has already heard that the paper agreed to pay Clifford to drop his case before Mulcaire was forced by the court to say who he worked for at the News of the World. At the same time, Edis noted, Brooks had introduced an email deletion policy "partly to remove emails that may have been unhelpful in future litigation".

    Court then rose for the day

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

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