Phone Hacking Trial: Help from Blair and Mandelson, Brooks the “phone hacking mastermind” – Martin Hickman

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Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson both offered to help an embattled Rebekah Brooks who was facing questions from the police. She also said she never knew about the activities of hacker Glenn Mulcaire – paid £1m by News International – until he was arrested. And she condemned hubbie Charlie for an ” impulsive ill thought out decision” in stashing away his computers and a bag full of lesbian DVD porn.

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Rebekah BrooksDay 67:   Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson privately offered to help Rebekah Brooks prepare for a grilling by MPs at the height of the phone hacking scandal, the Old Bailey heard today.

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Phone Hacking Trial: Brooks, Piers Morgan “may” have mentioned phone hacking in 2004 – Martin Hickman

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Another lapse of memory from Rebekah Brooks – can’t remember whether teased by rival piers Morgan over hacking her phone way back in 2004.

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Brooks and MorganDay 66, Part 2:   Journalist and former chat show host Piers Morgan may have mentioned phone hacking in 2004, two years before detectives arrested two News of the World figures for intercepting the voicemails of the Royal Household, the Old Bailey heard today.

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Phone Hacking Trial: Brooks interested in Milly case, but denies knowledge of hacking – Martin Hickman

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Very interesting. Rebekah Brooks now admits her extreme interest in Milly Dowler’s disappearance but says nobody tells her of the police’s disclosure to News International that Milly Dowler’s phone had been hacked by journalists at the News of the World

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Dowler and NoWDay 66:   Rebekah Brooks agreed today she was “ extremely interested ” in Milly Dowler’s disappearance – but denied she knew the News of the World had hacked her phone.

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Phone Hacking Trial: Brooks: The Sun had no written rules on payments to public officials – Martin Hickman

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Interesting conundrum that The Sun had no rules about payments to public officials because it knew they were illegal yet Rebekah Brooks is happy to pay out tens of thousands to people without asking who was receiving the money.

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Sun Day 65:   The Sun under Rebekah Brooks’s editorship had no written rules controlling the payment of money to public officials, she told the phone hacking inquiry today.

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Crash, bang wallop: Parliament’s computer system keeps cutting out

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Tried to email your MP?  Waiting for a reply from their office? Before you blame our public servants for being lazy, it may just be that their tools of the trade are on the blink.

 As I report on the Exaro News website Parliament’s computer system is getting and all singing, dancing upgrade so MPs can get super access to the internet.

Only the subcontractors installing it  have made one big mistake – they have programmed the system to get LESS access to the internet. The result: furious MPs, bad tempered office staff as the system regularly crashes and can’t cope.

 How do we know this? Well the mother of all democracies has not made the usual public announcement.. Instead it has used its private email; system to tell its 7500 users that they have got it wrong and issued a private apology.

Details of the email from Joan Miller, director of the parliamentary IT service, are on the Exaro website.

She wrote:“The problems may have shown themselves in freezing or slowing down of your web browsing, video via the web, slower delivery of e-mails sent outside Parliament, use of [Microsoft] Office 365 and other internet-dependent systems.

“I know that this has been very frustrating and inconvenient for those affected.  I therefore wanted to write to you to apologise for the ongoing problems and for any difficulties caused, and to tell you about what we have been doing to fix the problem.”

She admits:“We therefore commissioned work to upgrade and expand our links out of the estate to the internet. Unfortunately, in January, one of our suppliers involved in this upgrade inadvertently introduced an error into the supporting software. This had the opposite effect of that intended, that is, it reduced the capacity of the access to the internet.”

Officially Parliament  says it is OK. A spokesman said: ” “The company that provides this fully managed service made an error, which it has rectified at its own cost. This caused some disruption to parliamentary services.”

“We are working with the supplier to ensure that the services remain resilient in the future.”

But today one of my sources says it is as bad as ever. More cover ups?

 

Since the publication on Exaro and on my blog the story has been taken up by Hugh Muir in the Guardian diary -with a typical wry commentary

The phone hacking e-mail exchange between Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson

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An extraordinary email exchange between Rebekah Brooks (then Wade) and her ” good friend ” Andy Coulson has been released by the Crown Prosecution Service and published by Peter Jukes.

Exchanged on the day Royal reporter Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire pleaded guilty to phone hacking in the ” rogue reporter ” case in 2006, it reveals an extraordinary plan to leak the fact that Rebekah’s phone and the phone of Paul Dacre, editor of the Daily Mail  have been hacked by Mulcaire.

Coulson is cool on the idea  while Rebekah, who appears to be paranoid about Guardian Media getting the story, seems pretty jittery. A case of fear and loathing in Fleet Street.

 You can read the full  short exchange on  the Peter Jukes blog.

Phone Hacking Trial: Brooks unable to recall how The Sun established Blunkett story – Martin Hickman

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Extraordinary amnesia by Rebekah Brooks over the Blunkett lover story – did Andy Coulson who she was having an on off affair herself tell her or not?

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David-Blunkett-010_0 Day 64, Part 2:  Rebekah Brooks was unable today to remember how The Sun established the identity of Home Secretary David Blunkett’s lover hours after the News of the World being edited by her close friend Andy Coulson revealed the relationship.

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Phone Hacking Trial: Brooks and Coulson close at time of Dowler story, trial hears – Martin Hickman

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Rebekah Brooks admits she could trust Andy Coulson with ” any confidence” at time of phone hacking.

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Coulson BrooksDay 64, Part 1:   Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson were so close at the time of the Milly Dowler story that he could trust her with any confidence, she told the phone hacking trial today.

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Phone Hacking Trial: Brooks: I didn’t inquire into phone hacking while CEO of News International – Martin Hickman

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Further admissions that Rebekah Brooks took no action on phone hacking stories -except to agree a £1m deal with Max Clifford to protect the group’s reputation over his hacking claims.

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News International building in Wapping Day 63, Part 2:  Rebekah Brooks did not inquire into the scale of phone hacking at the News of the World while chief executive of News International despite fresh evidence suggesting the practice was widespread, the Old Bailey heard today.

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Phone Hacking Trial: Brooks knew of potential phone hacking victims in 2006, Old Bailey hears – Martin Hickman

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This seems on the surface a significant admission

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prescott30-415 Day 63, Part 1:  Rebekah Brooks knew that the deputy prime minister John Prescott and other high-profile individuals were potential victims of phone hacking in 2006, five years before News International stopped blaming voicemail interception on a single royal editor, the Old Bailey heard today.

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