Phone hacking scandal : Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson face charges
UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s former spin doctor Andy Coulson and former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks are to face charges over phone hacking.
According to Crown Prosecution Service, eight people including Rebekah Brook and Andy Coulson will face a total of 19 charges relating to phone hacking.
Rebekah Brooks will face 2 charges – one relating to the alleged accessing of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler’s phone messages. David Cameron’s former spin doctor Andy Coulson is also accused in relation to allegedly hacking into Milly Dowler’s phone.
Prosecutors will claim that more than six hundred people, including Hollywood movie superstars Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, were victims of this offence. Other victims of alleged hacking named in connection with the charges were former MP David Blunkett, Sven-Goran Eriksson, Abi Titmuss and John Leslie, Delia Smith, Jude Law, Sadie Frost, Sienna Miller, and Wayne Rooney.
Andy Coulson & Rebekah Brooks among eight journalists / case of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler’s phone messages
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said victims included the former home secretaries David Blunkett and Charles Clarke, Tessa Jowell MP and her husband, David Mills, and Professor John Tulloch, a victim of the 7 July 2005 terrorist attacks on London.
The allegations that Milly Dowler’s phone was hacked led to the News of the World’s closure. Charged in relation to that were Andy Coulson, Rebekah Brooks, Kuttner, Miskiw, Thurlbeck, and Mulcaire.
Rebekah Brooks, former chief executive of News International / phone hacking scandal
Today the local police said they believed there were 4,775 potential victims of phone hacking, of whom 2,615 had been notified. Sue Akers – the Metropolitan police deputy assistant commissioner, has told the Leveson inquiry her force had notified more than 702 people who were likely to have been victims.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has received files from the Met’s Operation Weeting team covering thirteen people, including eleven journalists from the News of the World and Mulcaire.
Former spin doctor Andy Coulson & Murdoch’s right hand Rebekah Brooks to be charged over phone hacking / UK News
Rebekah Brooks faces 3 charges relating to the alleged accessing the voicemails of teenage Milly Dowler and former trade union boss Andrew Gilchrist. Alan Coulson, the prime minister David Cameron’s former communications chief, will face 4 charges linked to accusations of accessing the phone messages of Milly Dowler, David Blunkett, Charles Clarke and George Best’s son Calum Best.
Accused Rebekah Brooks has told in a statement : ‘ I am not guilty of these charges. I did not authorise, nor was I aware of, phone hacking under my editorship. ‘
Rebekah Brooks added that the charge concerning Milly Dowler was particularly upsetting, not only as it is untrue but also because I have spent my journalistic career campaigning for victims of crime.
Eleven journalists and one non-journalist were due to answer police bail today. When the eight who are facing prosecution do so they will be charged. Once police have contacted all the alleged victims, and a list will be made available.
Phone hacking scandal UK: Murdoch & Brooks, Farewell my dearest
Rupert Murdoch’s former aide Rebekah Brooks was jailed Monday, after Britain’s top police officer resigned as the phone hacking scandal finally spread to the British police.
An intensifying voice-mail hacking and police-bribery scandal cut closer than ever to Rupert Murdoch and Scotland Yard with the arrest of the media magnate’s former British newspaper chief and the resignation of London’s police commissioner.
Phone hacking scandal UK – It gets bigger
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Paul Stephenson resigned Sunday due to speculation about his links to Rupert Murdoch’s empire and the force’s botched investigation into hacking at the now-defunct News of the World tabloid. AFP photo
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Paul Stephenson said he was quitting due to speculation about his links to Murdoch’s empire and the force’s botched investigation into hacking at the now-defunct News of the World tabloid.
Though the former executive, Rebekah Brooks, and the police chief, Sir Paul Stephenson, have denied wrongdoing, both developments are ominous not only for Murdoch’s News Corp., but for a British power structure that nurtured a cozy relationship with his papers for years.
Hours after her arrest, Sir Paul said he was resigning as commissioner of London’s force because of “speculation and accusations” about his links to Neil Wallis, a former News of the World executive editor who was arrested last week in the scandal. Mr. Wallis worked for the London police as a part-time public-relations consultant for a year until September, 2010. He was also a PR adviser to a luxury spa at which Sir Paul stayed when recovering from surgery.
Phone hacking scandal UK – Britain in shock
His shock announcement came just hours after police arrested Brooks — who resigned on Friday as head of News International, Murdoch’s British newspaper arm — on suspicion of phone-hacking and bribing police.
“I have taken this decision as a consequence of the ongoing speculation and accusations relating to the Met’s links with News International at a senior level,” Stephenson said in a hastily arranged televised statement.
Phone hacking scandal UK claimed top police chieh as latest victim
Prime Minister David Cameron called it “a very sad occasion for him,” adding “I wish him well for the future.”
However, the police chief took a sideswipe at Cameron and his government during his resignation speech despite Home Secretary Theresa May’s insistence that she was “sincerely sorry” to see him go.
Stephenson was linked to former News of the World deputy editor Neil Wallis in reports Sunday which said the police chief accepted a five-week stay earlier this year at a luxury health spa where Wallis was a PR consultant.
The force, which reopened the investigation into hacking in January, six years after it first broke, is already facing questions about why it hired Wallis as an advisor two months after he quit the tabloid.
Wallis was arrested last week.
“Let me state clearly, I and the people who know me know that my integrity is completely intact,” Stephenson said. “I may wish we had done some things differently, but I will not lose sleep over my personal integrity.”
May was due to address parliament later Monday over Scotland Yard’s employment of Wallis.
Cameron meanwhile faced questions about his decision to invite his former media chief Andy Coulson, another ex-News of the World editor, to his country residence in March, two months after Coulson quit Downing Street.
Cameron hired Coulson, who was arrested and bailed by police earlier this month, after the former editor had resigned from the tabloid over the scandal.
Stephenson highlighted this act when defending his force’s decision to employ Wallis.
“Unlike Mr Coulson, Mr Wallis had not resigned from News of the World or, to the best of my knowledge, been in any way associated with the original phone hacking investigation,” he said.
Phone Hacking Scandal UK : News of the World
The scandal first emerged when two people were convicted over phone hacking at the News of the World in 2006, but did not explode until July 4 when it emerged that one of the victims was a murdered teenager, Milly Dowler.
The flame-haired Brooks, one of Murdoch’s closest lieutenants, was editor of the News of the World at the time that Dowler’s voicemail messages were hacked and deleted.
Murdoch closed the paper last Sunday, starting a week of chaos in which he had to abandon his bid for control of pay-TV giant BSkyB and accept the resignations on Friday of both Brooks and Dow Jones chief Les Hinton, who had worked with him for 52 years.
Brooks’ spokesman David Wilson confirmed the former editor had been released at around midnight (23:00 GMT) following 12 hours of questioning by police and had been instructed to report back to a London police station in late October.
Wilson warned the arrest could affect her planned testimony before British lawmakers on Tuesday over the spiralling scandal alongside Murdoch and his son James, the chairman of News International.
“At the moment today’s events do somewhat change potentially her ability to attend the hearing. There will be discussions between her lawyers and the select committee over the next 24 to 36 hours,” Wilson told AFP.
“The fact that she has been arrested clearly has implications and so it is by no means a certainty that she will be able to attend, despite wishing to,” he added.
He said senior officers had told Brooks earlier in the week that she would not be arrested.
Scotland Yard confirmed that a 43-year-old woman “was arrested by appointment at a London police station by officers” on Sunday.
It said she was quizzed “in connection with allegations of corruption and phone hacking”.
Brooks, 43, is the 10th person and most senior Murdoch aide to be arrested over the scandal so far. At a previous hearing in 2003 she admitted the paper had made payments to police.
Phone-Hacking Scandal shutting down News of the World
After 168 years of print, the UK’s most widely read weekly newspaper News of the World published its latest issue on Sunday, after a phone-hacking scandal forced its owner, Rupert Murdoch, to close the tabloid.
The tabloid of the United Kingdom sensationalist yellow press admitted in its last edition that phones were really intercepted. Continuing revelations regarding phone hacking at one of the UK’s biggest newspapers has forced its closure, with the final edition hitting newsstands.
Phone Hacking Scandal Killed the 168 year old tradition
The inquiry on phone-tapping jumped to a different level last week after it was revealed that families of the people killed in the terrorist attacks in London in July 2005 as well as families of soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq were among the victims. Revelations about the phone hacking grew in seriousness in recent days, causing many companies to cancel advertising contracts with the publication. A police investigation regarding the scandal is underway, with those involved facing possible jail terms.
So far, five people were arrested, although two of them were released on bail, among them Andy Coulson, Prime Minister David Cameron’s Press chief until he resigned earlier this year and the newspaper’s director between 2003 and 2007, when the irregularities are supposed to have occurred.Cameron has accepted full responsibility for hiring him.
Rupert Murdoch : Overtime in Media Barony ?
Amidst the scandal, Murdoch arrived in this capital on Sunday in an attempt to avoid problems to other media of his own in the UK and to support his son James, chairman of the News International media company.
Media baron Rupert Murdoch flew into London on Sunday to tackle a phone-hacking scandal that has sent tremors through the British political establishment and may cost him a multi-billion dollar broadcasting deal. Murdoch fears the crisis prompted by News of the World could also affect the rest of the group that includes The Sun, The Times, The Sunday Times and part of Sky TV.
The Sunday Telegraph affirms that Murdoch’s son James could be charged after admitting that he ordered extrajudicial payments to phone-tapping victims and told lies to the British Parliament.
According to the denunciations, the News of the World journalists paid British police agents for information.The front cover of the final edition read: “Thank You & Goodbye – After 168 years, we finally say a sad but very proud farewell to our 7.5m loyal readers.” The headline appeared against a backdrop of various front page scoops printed by the paper over the years.
James Murdoch may also have to face charges in the United States, where he is listed as deputy chief operating officer of News Corp, the parent company of paper publishers News International.
Phone Hacking Scandal Uk Phone Hacking Scandal Rupert Murdoch Rupert Murdoch Scandal News of the World News of the World Closing News of the World Shutting Down
