Rebekah Brooks had final approval on every cash payment as editor of The Sun – The Times

The Times report this morning, of yesterday’s evidence at Kingston Crown Court where Sun journalists are facing trial for charges of conspiring to commit misconduct in public office

 

David Brown

Published at 12:01AM, October 21 2014

Brooks ‘sanctioned all cash payments’

, Kingston crown court was told yesterday.

The trial of six reporters and executives accused of unlawfully paying police officers and soldiers for stories heard that paperwork linking Mrs Brooks to the allegedly unlawful payments had gone missing.

Charlotte Hull, the newspaper’s former news desk assistant, said that Mrs Brooks only signed off contributor payments over ¡Ì1,000 paid through bank transfers but approved all cash payments regardless of the amount. She said: “Any cash payment had to be approved by the editor.”

Mrs Brooks was editor from 2003 to 2009, when she was succeeded by her deputy, Dominic Mohan. The allegedly unlawful payments were made between March 2002 and January 2011.

Beyond Contempt: Voewood Festival: Ebooks now Available – Paperback out at the End of the Month

Just to update after a number of inquiries: the paperback is now nearly proofed and about to be sent to the printers. Depending on their (summer) time scales, the book should be delivered by the end of the month with a launch party in Central London in mid September

What next for Rebekah Brooks? – Late Night Live – ABC Radio National Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Peter Jukes was named Britain’s best social media journalist for his live-tweeting of the trial of Rebekah Brooks every single day for eight months.  12,000 followers and half a million words later, the live-twitterer and author has now put his mind to finding out what the former tabloid queen will do next.  Fulltime motherhood to her two-year-old daughter Scarlett and a senior position in News Corp Australia are among the possibilities.

via What next for Rebekah Brooks? – Late Night Live – ABC Radio National Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

In this week’s New Statesman | The end of the red-top era

THE NS PROFILE: REBEKAH BROOKS

The TV drama screenwriter, author and freelance journalist Peter Jukes, who live-tweeted all 138 days of the phone-hacking trial, considers the rise and fall of Rebekah Brooks and what her career tells us about power. For eight months, Jukes looked on as Brooks maintained extraordinary composure in the witness box. By the end of the trial, he notes, “it felt as if the whole courtroom had become her friend”.

Rupert Murdoch’s Trouble Has Only Just Begun – The Daily Beast

Police pursuing corporate charges have already interviewed Les Hinton—who spent 50 years working with Murdoch, latterly as CEO of Dow Jones—Brooks, and Andy Coulson, who was convicted of phone hacking on Tuesday. Next, Scotland Yard’s questions are expected to be put directly to Murdoch

The FBI emails, on a single disk, were shared with investigators in London, but their existence was not disclosed to the judge until late in the phone-hacking trial and they were ultimately not entered into evidence and therefore could not be reported until the jury had reached its verdicts.The negative fallout from the phone-hacking trial has been substantial for Cameron, whose friendship with Brooks and Coulson has been widely debated in the British media.

Ed Miliband, leader of the Labour Party, said Cameron had “brought a criminal into the heart of Downing Street.”“He put his relationship with Rupert Murdoch over doing the right thing over Andy Coulson,” he said.

Murdoch’s cozy relationship with the British government reached its peak under Blair, who is the godfather of Murdoch’s second-youngest child, and its end fell on Cameron’s watch. After the Leveson inquiry into the state of the British media, the public heard that Cameron had ridden Brooks’ horse and signed his text messages to her “lol”—thinking it meant lots of love. Never again will a senior British politician dare to foster such a close relationship with Murdoch or one of his companies without fear of rebuke from the public.

via Rupert Murdoch’s Trouble Has Only Just Begun – The Daily Beast.

Hackgate’s digital warrior reveals media evolution – The Drum Australian Broadcasting Corporation

A lone “citizen journalist” ended up as much a part of the Hackgate story as the high profile protagonists in court, not least for revealing how the world has moved on from the old-world tabloid days, writes Paola Totaro

The news arrived at 11.57am GMT, in 140 characters and BIG capital letters, an ironic echo of an old-fashioned 172-point, front page tabloid headline: “BREAKING: Jury finds Brooks NOT Guilty on all counts at Hacking Trial: Coulson guilty on Count one.”

A second or two later, another ping: “Kuttner, Hanna, Carter, C Brooks not guilty – other verdicts still pending.”

So began the Twitter firestorm launched from the Old Bailey overnight as Justice Saunders delivered a string of verdicts – guilty for the former News of the World editor, Andy Coulson, and exoneration on all charges for his colleague, Rebekah Brooks – in the much-anticipated Hackgate trial.

Written by Peter Jukes, a British dramatist turned journalist, that first, electronic missive from Court 12 represented the #hackgate denouement of an estimated 25,000-plus tweets he has pumped out live, daily from the Old Bailey over the last seven or so months.

MORE AT  Hackgate’s digital warrior reveals media evolution – The Drum Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Journalists’ lives consumed by lengthy UK phone hacking trial – ABC News Australian Broadcasting Corporation

It has been called trial of the century, but for some involved in Britain’s ongoing phone hacking trial, it has felt like a century.The trial of seven defendants has been going on for more than 135 days.The jury is still deciding the fate of former senior executives in Rupert Murdoch’s stable, Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson.

BEYOND CONTEMPT: the Inside Story of the Phone Hacking Trial – Book Announcement

Mulcaire Sanctioned by Spooks: ‘Malign Influence’ of NI Lawyer on Goodman’s Legal Team

L/R: Clive Goodman, David Spens QC, Andy Coulson (image from Daily Mail

As Claire Pollard, who usually storifies my tweets, is away for a couple of days, I am reproducing, with kind permission of Rosie Robertson, today’s entry in her excellent Press Reform blog. I don’t think the evidence today from former NOTW Royal Correspondent Clive Goodman needs much comment

Peter Jukes on ABC Radio

Peter has spoken to Mark Colvinus on the PM programme on ABC Radio in Australia to give an update on the defence case of Rebekah Brooks at the Hacking Trial. Listen to the programme from the link below (from 38 minutes onwards):

PM Programme from ABC Radio