Phone-hacking trial: Cheryl Carter evidence completed, trial adjourned until Friday

Before evidence was taken the trial judge, Mr Justice Saunders, told the jury that Clive Goodman was still to unwell to give evidence and court would be adjourning after Cheryl Carter's evidence. He thanked them for their patience and assured the jury that everything possible was being done to keep the trial on schedule.

Andrew Edis QC, for the prosecution, then continued his cross-examination by asking the witness about her evidence yesterday that she only became aware there was a police investigation into phone hacking on 4 July 2011, when news that the missing teenager Milly Dowler had her voicemails intercepted appeared in the Guardian newspaper. Edid showed Carter an email, sent on 19 May 2011, from Will Lewis of the management and standards committee asking the witness to send a letter to the police about the ongoing inquiry. Carter said she would have printed the letter out but not necessarily have read the contents. "I was just tasked to do my job, that's what I would have done," the defendant told the court.

Another email from April 2011 was then shown to the court headed "message to all staff" which Carter agreed she would have seen. This stated that News International "accepted responsibility for phone hacking" adding that "we continue to cooperate with the police investigation". Carter agreed that she would have read this. Edis asked if the witness "read the newspapers" and suggested she must have known that three journalists had been arrested, and asked if the witness knew any of the arrested journalists. "I didn't have much dealings with them ... I would just say hello to them in the morning," Carter replied.

The prosecution QC asked Carter if she had ever discussed the police investigation with Brooks. "I just did my job as a secretary," the witness replied. "It was a pretty hot potato," Edis said and suggested that Carter was more that a secretary: "You ran her private life." The defendant continued to insist she had never discussed phone hacking or the police investigation with Brooks. Your testimony "is quite simply untrue" Edis suggested "what I'm trying to say is that is when it first hit me, on the 4th July" "What does that mean" Edis asked "that it was so sad" Carter replied. "This is simply a lie" the prosecutor responded, showing the court notes that Carter had arranged meetings between Brooks and the police "I just booked them, that was my job Mr Edis" the defendant said.

Edis then moved on to events of the 8th July 2011, the day Carter removed the seven boxes of documents from the News International archive. The barrister asked the witness to confirm she had not informed Brooks about the boxes, Carter said she had not "why not" Edis asked. "It was my job, I wanted by boxes," the defendant replied. "Why did you keep it from her," Carter was asked, and she replied: "My day was my concern." The prosecutor suggested "most people would ask their boss if they were going to take an hour off to retrieve their property" and asked Carter if she had spoken to Brooks that day. The witness agreed that she had spoken to her boss but denied that she had mentioned the matter to her.

The witness was then asked when she knew the News of the World was going to close, "I found out at the same time as everyone else," Carter replied. Edis then asked the defendant "didn't she trust you?" "I think she did but didn't tell me about this in advance." The prosecutor put it to the witness that Brooks "was always in charge of what you did and when you were at work you only did things that she wanted you to do." "I had an office to run," Carter replied. "It was called Rebekah Brooks' office," the prosecutor said "you did everything for her, and that was what you were doing with the boxes". "That is simply not true Mr Edis," the defendant responded. "Did it occur to you the police might be interested that boxes with her name on it had been taken out of the archive," Edis asked. "I hadn't done anything wrong, I got my boxes, I didn't think anything bad, they were my boxes," Carter responded. "They could have asked me and I would have told them," she added, telling the court that two News International executives, Simon Greenburg and Will Lewis, were supervising the police search.

Edis asked about another email from Brooks to Carter on 8 July, "Coffee and hot milk separately, this is disgusting", to which Carter replied "coming up." The witness said "I've obviously made her a terrible cup of coffee" and agreed she would have taken up another one. The prosecutor asked if the defendant would have spoken to Brooks when taking up the new cup of coffee and if so would she not have mentioned the boxes. "I would just have put the coffee on her desk," Carter replied. Another email from that day to Carter shown to the court was a request to arrange for a helicopter for Brooks to take her home. "Did you book it," Edis asked. "I think Deborah [Keegan] did," Carter replied.

The prosecutor then returned to the relationship between Carter and Brooks and suggested it was "close and trusting, two people working together as a team and doing very well, she had a lot of trust in you," to which Carter agreed. The court was then shown a resume of a draft autobiography by Rebekah Brooks which says Carter is a top PA "who would remember the names and dogs of people from MI5" and she would "break the legs of anyone who try and poached her from me". Edis asked about Brooks' evidence that Carter was "scatty and forgetful" where she mentioned Carter getting mixed up between MI5 and MFI, "which is an ancient joke, it isn't something that really happened". "It did," Carter replied. "I was stupid when I said it to Mr Murdoch, she [Brooks] really got cross." "It's an old joke," Edis suggested, adding "people who get to your position don't get to the position you did." "When I don't make mistakes I'm a really good PA," Carter said.

Edis suggested to the witness: "You wouldn't have done anything at all with those boxes without her permission as you are not as naive to not know how this would look if anyone found out. Nobody did anything in that office without her permission" Carter replied: "I'm sorry Mr Edis that is completely wrong." The cross-examination then ended with Edis saying "thank you Mrs Carter" and the defendant replied "thank you, Mr Edis". The court then took its morning break.

When proceedings resumed Trevor Burke QC, Carter's defence counsel, rose to re-examine his client. He returned to the events of 8 July 2011, when the boxes were removed from the News International archive, and reviewed the contacts between Carter and the archivist Nick Mayes. The defendant agreed that she was the one that initated the series of calls and emails between the two. Burke then showed the witness a letter, mentioned earlier, that Carter printed out and had sent to the police about the investigation into phone hacking. Carter said she would have not read the letter, just printed it out and given it to Brooks for her signature. The defendant told the court that when James Weatherup, a News of the World journalist, was arrested for phone hacking both she and Brooks were on holiday.

Carter was then asked about a meeting Brooks had with Ken McDonald, a former director of public prosecutions, on 6 July 2011. Carter confirmed she had not sat in at the meeting and did not realise this was about the issue of phone hacking. The defence counsel then asked his client about the first time the police searched her home and a statement she made to them which said in part "no one ever told me I could not get the boxes, I do not remember the dates". "Did any of the five detectives at your home assist you with the dates Mrs Carter," Burke asked. "No they didn't," the defendant replied.

Burke then asked Carter about the conversation she told the court she had with Rupert Murdoch about MI5/MFI. He asked the witness how she responded to prosecution suggestions that the story was a fabrication. "It was a million per cent true," Carter said. The witness told the story that Brooks had asked her to book a dinner with David Miliband but she had mistakenly arranged dinner with his brother Ed Milliband. "I got the winner though," the defendant said.

Court then adjourned for the day.

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