Phone-hacking trial: It took just six seconds to access voicemails through hacking, court hears

Jonathan Laidlaw QC, acting for Brooks, showed the court various Mulcaire "taskings" including ones relating to murdered teenager Milly Dowler. Chris Mitchell (an associate of Jeffrey Archer) and Radio 1 DJ Sarah Cox. As the court heard this morning, police have divided these into three levels depending on what information they contain: Grade one - no indication of hacking; grade two - indications of hacking or blagging; and grade three - preparation for hacking. The defence QC asked the police officer to explain the rationale of each of these. One shown to the court named two police officers and contained their mobile telephone numbers and addresses while another was that of a young woman whose boyfriend had been killed while abroad. The witness then left the stand.

Mr Justice Saunders then told the jury that former journalist Dan Evans was to be recalled to the stand to deal with a document that had been discovered over the weekend. This was a draft article by the witness that was found on News International's computer system. The piece was about actress Eva Green perhaps becoming a "Bond girl". Evans said he thought this may have come from a hack of the voicemail of Daniel Craig.

Timothy Langdale, acting for Andy Coulson, then cross examined the witness. Evans told him that the message was not explicit but that he stood by the story. The barrister asked Evans if he stood by his original story that the Eva Green story did not come from a hack. "I don't have a perfect memory," Evans said. Langdale asked Evans why the draft article said only that Green had undertaken a screen test and not that she was a cert to be a Bond girl if he had heard a voicemail with that information. Evans asked: "What's your point?" adding that this was just an "example of a tabloid story, that's all." The witness then left the stand. "Shall we do something exciting with dividers?" Edis asked the jury, and new documents were distributed to them.

The final witness of the day was detective constable Fitzgerald who presented the court with a schedule of call data relating to Glenn Mulcaire. The officer explained that the data was limited to the period 2005 to 2006 which had been discovered during Operation Caryatid, the original investigation into phone-hacking of members of the Royal household. Mulcaire used a number of phones, Fitzgerald said, not all of which had been identified. Another complication was that one of his telephone numbers was allocated to a cash machine in January 2006, leading to BT having to allocate him a new number. Despite these limitations, the officer said, there is "good evidence" that Mulcaire was hacking voicemails at this time.

DC Fitzgerald was then asked about how long it would take to intercept a voicemail. The officer had contacted mobile phone providers and they had conducted tests. Results varied between six and 15 seconds depending on the network and PIN number.

Court then rose for the day. The trial at the Old Bailey in London continues.

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