The BBC is reporting that Rebekah Brooks and her husband Charlie are to be charged with perverting the course of justice as part of the Metropolitan Police investigation into phone hacking at the News of the World.
If found guilty, Brooks, the former chief executive of News International, could face a prison sentence. Read more »
The hacking scandal just continues to spread. Following Monday night’s Panorama programme (‘Murdoch’s TV Pirates’), which centred on allegations that News Corporation-owned company NDS cracked the smart card codes of pay-TV rival ONdigital in an effort to undermine its business, there are now calls for a probe in Australia.
The BBC programme has also sparked an Ofcom investigation in the UK into the NDS claims, which look likely being echoed in Australia.
NDS is said to have led a pirate attack on ONdigital/ITV Digital, owned by the then ITV companies Granada and Carlton, which eventually went under as a result of counterfeiting by pirates and onerous sports rights deals, leaving the pay-TV field clear for BSkyB. Read more »
Former chief reporter of the News of the World, Neville Thurlbeck, was this afternoon arrested on suspicion of intimidating a witness.
He has been on bail since April 5 2011 when he was arrested on suspicion of phone hacking. His arrest comes in the same week that Rebekah Brooks and her husband, Charlie Brooks, were arrested along with four others. Read more »
Rebekah Brooks and her racehorse trainer husband Charlie are understood to be among those arrested this morning by police in connection with the phone hacking inquiry, according to Sky News.
The two were arrested at their home in Oxford as part of a police operation that saw six people arrested by detectives investigating phone hacking allegations, according to Scotland Yard. Read more »
Virginia Wheeler, defence editor of The Sun, has become the latest journalist to be arrested by police investigating corrupt payments to public officials as part of Operation Elveden.
The Sun’s defence editor, who is also one of the youngest to be taken into custody, is the 23-person to be arrested at News International. Read more »
Scotland Yard has confirmed today that it loaned Rebekah Brooks, the former News International chief executive, a retired police horse.
Brooks, who resigned at the height of the hacking scandal last Summer, is reported to have ridden the retired police horse for a year at her farm in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire. Read more »
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