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Rebekah Brooks: Turning Down MPs expenses story ” pretty high error of judgement”, while Cabinet minister Charles Clarke responsible for another leak, she claims Scotland Yard told her!
Day 60:
Stories for which the Sun paid a civil servant thousands of pounds could have come from a variety of legitimate sources rather than a public official, the paper’s former editor Rebekah Brooks said today.
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So Rebekah Brooks admits paying out cash to public officials without knowing who they were – and that her treatment of Clare Short, a former labour Cabinet minister, over her page three campaigns was ” cruel and harsh”.
Day 59:
One of Rupert Murdoch’s most senior executives told a court today that she authorised payments to public officials in return for information for stories in his British newspapers.
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The Met Police are close to charging people in the investigation sparked off by Tom Watson’s claims of a paedophile ring at the time of the Thatcher government.
A report in Exaro News reveals that after interviewing and contacting some 100 people police are confident that they have a number of high profile witnesses -including an Anglican bishop, a pre eminent businessman and a well known journalist – who have given statements alleging sexual abuse or attempted sexual abuse.
The victims have come forward under Operation Cayacos – a spin-off from the original scoping study, Operation Fairbank – which has now been going on for over 18 months.
Watson alleged in Parliament that a network run by Peter Righton, the notorious paedophile, reached into the top levels of British politics. The MP raised the issue in prime minister’s questions soon after the exposure of Jimmy Savile, the late BBC star, as a paedophile.
The late Righton – at one time regarded as a leading specialist in child protection – was a founder of the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE), which promoted sex with children. The organisation has recently been in the centre of a furious row after the Daily Mail published a series of stories showing that it was affiliated to the National Council for Civil Liberties during a period when Labour’s deputy leader, Harriet Harman, was its legal adviser. Harman has accused the Daily Mail of smears.
Patricia Hewitt, a former Labour Cabinet minister was general secretary of the NCCL and according to The Guardian was involved in discussions with PIE over lowering the age of consent for sexual activity.
According to the witness, Righton boasted of links to powerful figures in government.
When police raided Righton’s house in Evesham, Worcestershire in 1992, they found hard-core images of child abuse from Amsterdam and a “quarter-century of correspondence” between paedophiles in Britain and around the world. But police failed to follow-up the leads at the time, prompting allegations by Watson 16 months ago of an ‘establishment’ cover-up.
The move suggests that the police have made more progress in this investigation than in Operation Fernbridge – which has led to two people facing trial at Southwark Crown Court in May.
Rebekah Brooks admits she offered ex Royal correspondent and hacker Clive Goodman a job back at the Sun to prevent him going to an industrial tribunal and disclosing that he believed phone hacking was rife at News International. Interesting!
Day 58, Part 2:
Rebekah Brooks offered a phone hacker a job after he came out of prison to stop him alleging widespread hacking at the News of the World, she told the phone hacking trial today.
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Another phone hacking denial from Rebekah Brooks- this over Blunkett’s affair
Day 58:
The Sun did not rely on phone hacking to establish the identity of Home Secretary David Blunkett’s lover, the Old Bailey heard today.
Kimberly Quinn was named by the redtop as being Mr Blunkett’s partner on Monday 16 April 2004, the day after its Sunday sister the News of the World broke the news of the affair between the Labour politician and the married woman.
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Second denial re Milly Dowler story from Rebekah Brooks
Day 57, Part 2:
Rebekah Brooks today denied ordering newspaper executives to remove a reference to a hacked voicemail from a story about Milly Dowler.
The News of the World changed a story on 13 April 2002 about a voicemail left for the missing 13-year-old after police questioned its veracity.
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Rebekah Brooks defence: I learned about the hacking of Milly Dowler’s phone from The Guardian. Fascinating.
Day 57, Part 1:
Rebekah Brooks today denied any involvement in the hacking of Milly Dowler’s phone. Giving evidence at the Old Bailey, Mrs Brooks said she had not known that the schoolgirl’s voicemail had been intercepted days after her disappearance in 2002.
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Amazing how £92,000 a year is so much small beer – £1000 a week payments not big enough to bring to the attention of the editor.
Day 56, Part 1:
Rebekah Brooks did not know that Glenn Mulcaire was on a £92,000-a-year contract with the News of the World, she told the phone hacking trial today. The paper had an annual £30 million editorial budget when she was editor.
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Very interesting that Rebekah Brooks said she had never heard of Glenn Mulcaire during her editorship.
Day 55, Part 2:
Rebekah Brooks relied upon the News of the World’s managing editor Stuart Kuttner to oversee the paper’s multi-million pound budget, she told the hacking trial this afternoon.
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The feminist defence of Rebekah Brooks against misogynist males at the News of the World.
Rebekah Brooks battled her way through a high-spending, hyper-competitive and sometimes “misogynistic” world to climb to the top of tabloid journalism, the phone hacking trial heard today.
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Westminster Confidential 