Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
THEY WERE ONCE two of the most powerful people in the British media, senior executives for media mogul Rupert Murdoch and associates of Prime Minister David Cameron.
Former News of the World editors Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson go on trial today, along with several others, on charges of hacking phones and bribing officials while at the now-shuttered Murdoch tabloid.
Both arrived early at London’s Central Criminal Court for the first day of the trial, which was opening with legal arguments and jury selection. Brooks came by taxi with her husband, Charles Brooks, who faces a related charge of obstructing justice.
The trial unfolding in a plain, starkly lit room at the Old Bailey should provide high drama for media watchers – and an unwelcome reminder for Murdoch and Cameron of the two-year-old scandal that continues to tarnish Britain’s media, politicians and police.
Murdoch tweeted about the upcoming trial earlier this month: “Remember, everyone innocent until proven guilty, entitled to fair trial in most countries.”
WHO IS ON TRIAL?
The three highest-profile defendants are: Brooks, 45, ex-editor of the News of the World and former chief executive of Rupert Murdoch’s British newspapers; Coulson, 45, another former News of the World editor who was Prime Minister David Cameron’s communications chief until 2011; and Rebekah Brooks’ 50-year-old husband Charles, a racehorse trainer.
Coulson and Rebekah Brooks have become the faces of the scandal, though neither has been convicted of wrongdoing.
He was the elusive figure – rarely photographed – behind Cameron’s canny media strategy. She was the flame-haired high-flyer who exchanged text messages with her friend and neighbour Cameron while overseeing Murdoch’s politically powerful British newspapers.
They face trial alongside former News of the World managing editor Stuart Kuttner, ex-news editor Ian Edmondson and former royal editor Clive Goodman; Rebekah Brooks’ former assistant Cheryl Carter; and Mark Hanna, former security chief at Murdoch’s News International.
WHAT ARE THE CHARGES?
Brooks and Coulson are charged with conspiracy to intercept communications – phone hacking – and with conspiracy to commit misconduct in a public office, which covers bribing officials such as police and prison guards. The other former News of the World journalists face related charges.
Rebekah Brooks, Charles Brooks, Carter and Hanna are accused of conspiring to pervert the course of justice by removing material from the company archive and withholding computers and documents from police.
The defendants deny all the charges.
HOW DID THE ALLEGATIONS ARISE?
The charges stem from the scandal that erupted in 2011, when it was revealed that journalists at the News of the World eavesdropped on the cellphone voice mail messages of celebrities, politicians, crime victims and others in the public eye.
The furore led Murdoch to close the News of The World and triggered police investigations into phone hacking, computer hacking and the bribery of officials, which have expanded to take in other newspapers.
More than 30 people have been charged, including senior journalists and editors from the News of the World and its sister paper, The Sun.
WHAT ARE THE ISSUES IN THE TRIAL?
This will be a long and complex trial, expected to last up to five months. The first step will be selecting a jury; the prosecution is expected to begin outlining its case later in the week.
Judge John Saunders will ask jurors to ignore everything they may have heard about the defendants and focus on the evidence. The dozens of journalists on hand face restrictions including a ban on tweeting from court as the judge attempts to rein in speculation and comment.
The central questions are: What did Brooks and Coulson know, and how widespread were illegal practices during the periods when they ran the newspaper? Brooks edited the paper between 2000 and 2003; in 2002, it hacked the mobile phone voice mails of murdered 13-year-old Milly Dowler, while police were searching for her. (Brooks denies knowing about any of the hacking). Coulson was in charge from 2003 to 2007.
WHAT SENTENCES COULD THEY GET?
The maximum sentence for phone hacking is two years in prison, while the other charges carry a maximum life sentence, although the average term imposed is much shorter.
WILL THE TRIAL PUT AN END TO THE SAGA?
Not likely. The hacking scandal convinced many politicians and members of the public that Britain’s press was out of control. Cameron ordered a judge-led inquiry into media ethics, which recommended an independent press regulator be set up with state backing. Many editors and journalists fear that could lead to state regulation, but they may find it hard to resist amid a new blare of publicity about media misdeeds.
Revelations at the trial also could heap new pressure on Murdoch, who remains atop his now-fractured media empire. The scandal led him to shut down his best-selling newspaper, pay millions to settle lawsuits from hacking victims and split his News Corp. into two businesses, a publishing company and a media and entertainment group.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Joan Burton the peoples champion .
Don’t make me laugh.
iPhone Joan has completely lost her marbles recently.
The likelihood of her losing her seat too, shortly , has driven her temperament to the house for the bewildered.
That and the courting session that has begun between Enda & Mehole , which only confirms , that everyone now knows , that The Labour Party will be virtually nonexistent, following after the soon to be announced General Election!!!
As two faced as you can get,nothing genuine about her
Lads, why is Gerry less popular than iPhone Moanie Joanie in the opinion polls? Doesn’t make sense,
Well Empress Maria Louisa is simply looking after her support base… sure all teachers are on the Spin Feign ten cent payroll… look at them all out off the leash today… woof woof
I’d say it’s rigged!
Keep digging there iphone, everytime you open your mouth its another nail in labours coffin.
The Government are not listening to the people, they never did. When questioned by the opposition they simply ignore the question and make some silly unrelated waffle.
We are under the power of a dictatorship pure and simple, They don’t care about you or me or if your kids or mine are hungry or cold they have quangos to re fair you to for answers to those issues. They imposed a home tax and a water tax against the will of the people, Fine Gael and Labor never again Rotten shower of get rich quick opportunists.
I feel embarrassed for the people of Dublin West.
Goodbye Joan.
Let she who is without sin…..
do page 3.
Pic of Joan Burton clothed even would turn me off a newspaper for life
When the governments backs are against the wall, they seem to have only one plan: attack Sinn Féin.
Hundreds of people on trollers? Attack Sinn Féin.
Homeless people dying on our streets? Attack Sinn Féin.
Not representing the people who put them in power? Attack Sinn Féin.
The list of incompetence is endless.
*should read hundreds of people in trollies.
Not so smart iJoan burton must have requested a truthful comment about her to be deleted. What a pathetic inhumane individual. Delete away, doesn’t change the poor way she treats the people of Ireland.
As an erstwhile Labour voter – (I know, I know, but I am a working class person) – I come to bury JobBridge Joan, not to praise her. How this woman, who has connived in ,and indeed initiated, the most anti social and anti working class measures in this country since the 1920′s can criticize anyone, ANYONE, absolutely beggars belief. I hold no particular brief for Ms. McDonald, but this shameless bid to smear political opponents should not be allowed to pass unchallenged. Shame on you, you patronizing, multi pensioned baggage. LEAVE NOW, before you are dragged out of Leinster House and thrown in the gutter where you belong.
Oh, Pontius, that was a mere aside. Believe me, I have a whole lot more that I could say, but brevity being the soul…. and all that!
It is not just Joan. They all are doing it, especially when the marginalised party members speak (though it is difficult to think of SF as marginalised anymore, but in the Dail, they are). They attack the person. It is a strategy of FF/FG/Lab to attack people first and mmmmmmaybe, then, address the issue. It’s dysfunctional.
“Burton said she regularly visits both “well-off” schools and those in “poorer communities” through her job,”
Guess iJoan doesn’t visit schools in poorer communities as much as she use to, since she developed Globophobia.
If Joan Burton is saying Mary Luo is a saint then Joan must be a Satanist.
i like Mary Lou. She is a true Fianna Failer.
Bang on. What she is quoted as saying in the above article is pure mealy-mouthed blather.
I cant even stomach reading about Iphone Joan, never mind hearing her head melting voice. The sooner she is out of government the better,
CAN I JUST SAY bye bye joan! FOR THE PEOPLE
SF jumping on another bandwagon, I see.
There is zero mention of Junior Cert reform in SF’s manifesto from the last general election: http://www.sinnfein.ie/files/2011/SF_GeneralElectionManifesto2011.pdf
It seems a bit rich for a Labour TD to pass any remark on where people went to school…it seems to me that more than on of their own had a fee paying Education and at least one confirmed that was important by sending his children to fee paying schools?
St. Jude is Moanie Joan’s new Patron Saint.
Burton is a dipstick and will be political history soon enough
Labour getting their mojo back. About time.
Mojo? More like voodoo zombies.
Mojo?
Does that stand for Mad Old Joan?!
John, that was a goodie!! :-D
So they have at least 18 votes in 2016 then? Or are the green thumbers just being kind?
What a witch she is most hated person in the Country now her and Enda The people can not stand them any more
They has, has they?
Mary Lou is getting terrible crow’s feet and Joan looks like she’s melting. It’s time to get some attractive women in senior party positions. In the North, we have delights such as Arlene Foster, Naomi Long and Carál Ní Chúilín. Now they’re riding material.
It’s time to get casually sexist lads.. let’s all talk about women’s appearances and not mention once how the men look… except willie o’dea.. we have to mention him and his magnificent moustache. And doesn’t Micky Wallace’s beard look awful
I love a bit of casual sexism. Don’t be knocking it.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2026450/One-teachers-bullied-online-parents-pupils.html
“Facebook and Twitter have been used to intimidate teachers over bad grades or simply because they are not liked.
More than a quarter of those that admit they have been targeted say the abuse has come from parents with one headteacher was driven to the brink of suicide by a year-long online hate campaign.
One parent even set up a ‘Google group’ and asked others to join in their abuse.”
Does the government not get it, when teachers mark their own students, then if the student gets a bad score who do you think their parents will take this out on, their child or the teacher?
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2010/mar/30/teachers-bullied-online
“More than one in seven teachers has been the victim of cyberbullying by pupils or parents, and almost half know a colleague who has been targeted, according to a survey published today.
Students have set up “hate” groups on social networking sites calling for specific teachers to be sacked and have even created fake profiles in their names containing defamatory information.”
http://www.exaronews.com/articles/5066/more-than-a-third-of-teachers-bullied-and-threatened-by-parents
Over 40% of teachers threatened by parents and .3% of 14,000 teachers was physical abuse by parents. This is what self assessing will do as it has happened in England and bringing this in here will do the same.
Parents are going to bully the teachers here because when their child is upset due to a poor or poorer grade they blame the teacher but this government do not care and all that this does is make teachers stop teaching and is that what the government wants?
http://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/2011/oct/03/bullying
“I am an ICT teacher and feel that I have to give students high marks or be labelled incompetent. There is nowhere in the system that you can bring this to light.”
“My health was so badly affected that I had no option but to leave.”
It will be the same here and the government does not care and when someone sticks up for the teachers, they get shot down why?
The fact is the government are bullies and they are promoting now the bullying of teachers and anyone who tries to make a point like Mary Lou is then attack by a person who acts like a bully?
I thought that Mary Lou would do a sit-in if she was really passionate about the rights of teachers.
iPhone Joan will have no prob getting job when she gets gate this year
“Haunting houses she will clean up”
Some mistake surely, shouldn’t Lairy Moo be compared to a martyr instead?
have your say