Rebekah Brooks to appear in court

The former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks will appear in court today in connection with a series of criminal charges in relation to her time at Rupert Murdoch's publishing empire as editor of the News of the World (NoW) and of the Sun.

She will be asked to tell the court if she is pleading guilty or not guilty to three sets of charges relating to alleged phone hacking, unlawful payments to public officials for stories, and allegations that she tried to pervert the course of justice by concealing material from the police at the height of the phone-hacking investigation in July 2011.

Brooks will appear with nine other defendants including her husband, Charlie Brooks, a racehorse trainer and friend of the prime minister, David Cameron, at Southwark crown court in London.

He has been accused along with six others, including Brooks’s former secretary Cheryl Carter and News International’s head of security, Mark Hanna, of conspiring to pervert the course of justice by concealing material, documents and computers from police. The charge carries a maximum penalty of life, although the average term served in prison is 10 months.

Former staff
Also in court to enter pleas will be four former staff at the now defunct NoW who have been charged in connection with allegations of phone hacking, including the managing editor, Stuart Kuttner, news editor, Greg Miskiw, head of news, Ian Edmondson, chief reporter, Neville Thurlbeck and reporter, James Weatherup.

– (Guardian service)