Phone-hacking trial: A phone call, a resignation and a police frenzy
Charlie and Rebekah Brooks leave court
Court resumed this afternoon to hear further evidence from Charlie Brooks in his defence against a single charge of conspiring to pervert the course of justice. The prosecution allege that Brooks hid documents and electronic devices on 8 July 2011 with the intention of concealing evidence from police investigating his wife Rebekah Brooks' involvement in phone hacking while editor of the now-defunct News of the World.
Neil Saunders, Brooks' defence barrister, began the session by asking his client about events on 7 July 2011. The witness confirmed that he had arranged to go to a Take That concert, but cancelled due to his wife being too busy. The court was shown an email in which Brooks asked Cheryl Carter for Rupert Murdoch's phone number. The witness said that he had spoken to Murdoch who had told him to call if there was any sign his wife was thinking of resigning. "These were his explicit instructions," he added.
Brooks told the court on 8 July he compered a charity event at Ascot for which he was paid £1,000. Brooks was then asked about emails between him and Charles Farr, who the witness described as a "total spook." Farr, the witness told the court had helped him with the plot of his novel "Switch" and he had agreed to forward Farr's email address to his wife "he had done me a favour so it seemed like the decent thing to do."
Brooks was then asked about his relationship with the security team News International had provided to protect him and his wife, who had the codename "Blackhawk". "We thought they were as likely as anyone else to tell the media where we were going, so we only told that what they needed to know, as we knew they would follow us anyway. We were probably being paranoid, and we might have being unfair," the defendant admitted. On 10 July 2011 the couple drove to London to meet Rupert Murdoch. Brooks said he did not stay to hear what was discussed but met them later for dinner, "There was a right old scrum," the witness said, referring to the crowd of journalists and photographers outside the hotel. On 11 July 2011, the court has already been told, Rebekah Brooks spent an hour on the phone to Tony Blair. Charlie Brooks told the court he was unaware of that at the time as "I didn't listen in to my wife's phone calls". He later "confiscated" her Blackberry to make sure his wife got some rest, the defendant said. A subsequent email discussing "seven rats outside the house" was a reference to press photographers, Brooks explained.
By 13 July, the defendant told the court, his wife was planning to take a "leave of absence" from her role as CEO of News International ahead of her scheduled appearance at a parliamentary select committee the following Monday. On Thursday 14 July the defendant said he received a call from James Murdoch telling him that the company had decided Rebekah Brooks should resign and asked the witness to tell her. Brooks then rang his wife to tell her the news. "She said 'thank goodness for that, I've been telling them that since the 3rd of July'," the defendant told the court
The court then took a short break.
When the jury returned the court was shown an email from Charlie Brooks to his wife from 15 July reminding her he had an iPad, a Blackberry and a Macbook belonging to News International. Text messages between the security team from that day were then shown to court, the first was "Blackhawk [Rebekah Brooks] has been sacked", the reply was "tee-hee, fun and games". Brooks told the court "it was an incendiary situation, Rebekah's resignation seemed to have thrown the police into a complete frenzy". On that day, the court was told, the police had asked Brooks to attend an interview the following Sunday. "That trumped everything else," the defendant said. To avoid the media the couple went to a different Oxfordshire property that night, Enstone Manor.
Court then rose for the day
All of the defendants deny all of the charges, the trial continues