Tag Archives: News International

It’s official: News International security referred to the Charlie Brooks car park moment as ” Pizzagate”

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By Martin Hickman

A security boss contracted by News International to guard Rebekah Brooks described an alleged plot to hide evidence from police as “pizzagate,” the hacking trial heard today.

William Geddes, managing director of International Corporate Protection, asked colleague Dave Johnson: “Can you talk ref Pizzagate?”

Mr Geddes sent the message on Monday 18 July after police were called to Mrs Brooks’s flat complex following the discovery of a laptop bag in its basement car park.

A security guard working for News International had delivered some pizzas to Mrs Brooks’s husband Charlie at Chelsea Harbour as cover for returning the laptop bag, according to the Crown.

Asked by judge John Saunders to explain the reference to Pizzagate, Mr Geddes said: “Pizzagate was the term the team came up with for the fact that the errand they ran included not only returning a bag, but a pizza, so that’s what they called it.”

He explained that many of the security guards protecting Mrs Brooks were ex-military who used “lingo.”

Asked again by the judge to clarify Pizzagate, Mr Geddes went on: “My interpretation would be in the spirit of the general lingo used by my team members this was blowing an inconvenient situation into a bit of a drama.”

Mr Geddes explained that his company was contracted by NI’s security chief Mark Hanna in April 2011 to protect the chief executive, Mrs Brooks. ICP was contracted again in June 2011, when Mr Geddes subcontracted part of the job to another security firm, Corunna Solutions.

Mr Geddes told the court: “Our duties were to perform a discreet security coverage and to identify any surveillance against her [Mrs Brooks] that might be carried out by members of the media or hostile members of the public.”

He said the risk assessment suggested there might be an internal threat from “rogue elements” within News International, but did not elaborate.

Mrs Brooks, Mr Brooks and Mr Hanna deny conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. The case continues.

This report was originally on the http://hackinginquiry.org website.

The ‘Pizzagate’ Tapes

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Great blog from a man everyone interested in the hacking trial should follow. @peterjukes gives a blow by blow account of the video evidence being used by the prosecution against Rebekah Brooks, Charlie Brooks and the head of security Mark Hanna. A must for aficionados who follow the inside story of the Murdoch Empire

peterjukes's avatarThe Criminal Media Nexus

The CPS today released video evidence from Count 7 in the phone hacking trial, of CCTV from the London residence of  Rebekah and Charlie Brooks at Thames Quay in Chelsea, for the 17th and 18th of July 2011 – starting the Sunday Brooks was arrested and the Chelsea property searched.

According to testimony from the MD of International Corporate Protection, William Geddes, his personal security operative ended up calling the whole affair ‘Pizzagate’.

About half an hour of video – which showed a static Black Audi in the underground car park –  has been edited out from the raw footage because it wasn’t shown to the jury. The remainder is the subject of evidence, contained in my tweets  from Court 12 at the end Monday January 13th, and much of the testimony today Tuesday January 14th.

I’ve included specific CCTV tweets below, but not related call data.

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Phone Hacking Trial: Potential evidence concealed in “pizza delivery” to Brooks’s flat, jury hears – Martin Hickman

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You could hardly make up make these accusations. First News International executives are shown to be paranoid about being bugged then the husband of Rebekah Brooks is caught on security cameras with a ” disappearing ” laptop and then there is an alleged plan to remove evidence under the guise of a pizza delivery. And these are our top news executives. Their defence is going to be very interesting!

INFORRM's avatarInforrm's Blog

CCTVDay 39, Part 1: Further CCTV footage of Rebekah and Charlie Brooks was shown to the jury at the phone hacking trial as the Crown made its case that they hid evidence from police. The closed circuit pictures captured the events in the basement car park of the Brooks’s London home on the day Mrs Brooks was arrested at Lewisham police station for suspected phone hacking.

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Caught on Camera: Charlie Brooks and a ” disappearing ” laptop -now you see it, now you don’t

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David Hencke comment: There is a delicious irony in this evidence that top News International executives accused of authorising hacking and payments to officials should be so paranoid  themselves about spying that are continually sweeping their offices and homes for bugs and end up being videoed on a private security camera in an underground car park.

 

By Martin Hickman

Rebekah Brooks’s husband was filmed by closed-circuit cameras going into the basement of an apartment block with an envelope and a laptop – and returning a few seconds later without either.

CCTV pictures of Charlie Brooks were shown to the jury at the phone hacking trial as evidence of an alleged plot by the Brooks’s to hide evidence from detectives investigating hacking at the News International.

The footage was shot at 12.14pm on 17 July 2011, 12 minutes after Mrs Brooks was arrested on suspicion of intercepting voicemails while at the News of the World.

According to the prosecution, Mrs Brooks, Mr Brooks and NI’s head of security, Mark Hanna, plotted together to pervert the course of justice between 14 July and 19 July 2011.

Mark Bryant-Heron, for the prosecution, gave the jury at the Old Bailey a timeline of the events of 17 July.

In the morning, he said, Mrs Brooks and a security guard had travelled by car from Enstone in Gloucestershire to Lewisham police station in London where she was due to be questioned. Another associate of hers followed in a second car.

At 12.02pm, shortly after she arrived at the police station, Mrs Brooks was arrested.

The court was then shown a short burst of CCTV footage from 11.52am showing Mr Brooks and his solicitor Angus McBride arriving at Chelsea Harbour in London where the Brooks’s had a flat.

In further CCTV pictures timed at 12.14pm – 12 minutes after the arrest of his wife – Mr Brooks was seen entering the basement car park of the complex.

After apparently loitering momentarily by a pillar, Mr Brooks walked around the pillar and toward the camera carrying a Jiffy bag and a laptop computer. He then disappeared from view.

A few seconds later, at 12.15pm, Mr Brooks walked back past the camera and towards the pillar empty-handed, without the bag or the laptop.

Closing his remarks for the afternoon, Mr Bryant-Heron said that the jury would see further CCTV footage tomorrow.

Mrs Brooks, Mr Brooks and Mr Hanna deny conspiring to pervert the course of justice.

This post originally appeared on http://hackinginquiry.org website last night.

Phone Hacking Trial: Rebekah Brooks escorted out of building on day she resigned, hacking trial hears – Martin Hickman

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Today’s hearing included a dramatic description of how the powerful Rebekah Brooks was escorted out of News International HQ carrying only her handbag and a canvas bag. The locks were changed on here executive suite and she was not allowed to take anything but her personal possessions. She had become a ” person of interest” to the police and was arrested two days later.

INFORRM's avatarInforrm's Blog

Rebekah BrooksDay 37, Part 1: One of Rebekah Brooks’s personal assistants had several meetings with a defendant in the hacking trial after giving a statement to police, the Old Bailey heard today.

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Media and Law Review of the Year, 2013: Part 2, Phone Hacking, Blagging, Bribing and the Trial

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This is a superb summary of the hacking trial and a reminder of the large number of journos and their sources facing future trials over phone hacking, bribery of officials and officials from former police and prison officers to health staff facing charges of accepting bribes. It also points up the Exaro News revelation of the full Murdoch “tape” secretly recorded when he addressed the arrested journos.

INFORRM's avatarInforrm's Blog

2013 year in review 2Phone hacking and its close relations blagging and bribing were rarely out of the media law news in 2013.  There were new arrests and charges throughout the year, culminating in an Old Bailey Trial.  This began on 28 October 2013 with eight defendants facing seven charges.

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Phone Hacking Trial: Hundreds of hacking calls made from ‘private wire’ inside NI HQ, jury told – Martin Hickman

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This is a breathtaking disclosure of a huge number of hacking calls made not from private investigator Glenn Mulcaire who police discovered had been paid £1m by News International over many years but actually from inside News International HQ.
When one thinks it is alleged that Prince William and Harry’s private secretary was targeted 416 times in nine months and even journalists on the rival Mail on Sunday were receiving hacking calls this appears like an industrial scale enterprise.

INFORRM's avatarInforrm's Blog

News-International-007Day 24: Hundreds of hacking calls were made from a “private wire” inside News International’s headquarters, the Old Bailey heard today.

Among those whose voicemails were accessed from the “generic” phone link at Wapping in east London were Katie Price, Tessa Jowell, celebrity PR advisor Alan Edwards and three Mail on Sunday journalists – Sebastian Hamilton, Dennis Rice and Laura Collins, the hacking trial was told.

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Glenn Mulcaire’s £1m payments from the News International

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A fascinating memo has been released at the hacking trial this week and published on the great blog by freelance journalist PeterJukes.
Written by Tom Crone one of News International’s former trusted lawyers and sent to Andy Coulson, then editor of the paper, it details information apparently obtained by Rebekah Brooks from the police on the progress of the police investigation into the later convicted hackers,ex Royal correspondent Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire.
It correctly predicts that the police are likely to ” bang to rights ” both of them. But interestingly it reveals that the police recovered invoices and payments totalling ” over a £1m” to Glenn Mulcaire revealing what a successful career the hacker had with the organisation over many,many years.
Ironically the cost of his work and others as Exaro News revealed before the trial has been secretly estimated by former News International chief executive as up to £1 billion in compensation to hacked victims,legal fees and support for suspended staff.
You can read the memo in full on Peter Jukes ‘s website plus two memos from Andy Coulson to his staff seeking new stories.
It is interesting to see how well-informed Rebekah Brooks was about the state of the investigation and what the police would later find out. A ” must read” I would say.

Charlie Brooks Will Lewis email exchange: Chris Bryant MP “making stuff up”

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This little gem from Peter Jukes comes from documents released in the hacking trial and shows the dislike in the Murdoch Empire for Chris Bryant having the temerity to suggest they could have been. involved in phone hacking. Note BBC Panorama being ” hit” by two legal letters and the determination that Rebekah Brooks must be protected from any suggestion that phone hacking took place prior to 2005. ” We will not let this happen”says Will Lewis. No comment is necessary now.

peterjukes's avatarThe Criminal Media Nexus

Here’s the email exchange cited today in court between Rebekah Brooks‘ husband Charlie, and Will Lewis, formerly a senior executive at the Telegraph and then a senior News International executive.  It was prompted by questions raised in the House of Commons by the Labour MP Chris Bryant.

Will Lewis went on to run, under Lord Grabiner, the Management and Standards Committee, which provided evidence to the three MPS investigations – Operation Weeting, Elveden and Tuleta – as proof of co-operation with the police and compliance with US Department of Justice requirements under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Lewis is now a senior News Corp executive in New York.

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Phone Hacking Trial: Rebekah Brooks assured PCC “any journalist who breaks the law” was liable to summary dismissal – Martin Hickman

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Theses assurances were given to the Press Complaints Commission personally by Rebekah Brooks who tells them that anybody breaking the law at News International faces the sack. She is now accused at the Old Bailey of authorising illegal payments of £40,000. I am saying nothing!

INFORRM's avatarInforrm's Blog

Day 19 (Part 2):  Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers “placed great emphasis” on the code of practice for journalists, Rebekah Brooks told the Press Complaints Commission two years before she was arrested for suspected phone hacking and corruption.

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