''R v Coulson, Brooks and others'' was a trial at the
Old Bailey
The Central Criminal Court of England and Wales, commonly referred to as the Old Bailey after the street on which it stands, is a criminal court building in central London, one of several that house the Crown Court of England and Wales. The s ...
in
London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
,
England
England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
, arising from the
News International phone hacking scandal
Beginning in the 1990s, and going as far until its shutdown in 2011, employees of the now-defunct newspaper ''News of the World'' engaged in phone hacking, police bribery, and exercising improper influence in the pursuit of stories.
Investi ...
.
Pleas
At the start,
Glenn Mulcaire, Neville Thurlbeck, James Weatherup and Greg Miskiw all pleaded guilty to various charges.
The accused who pleaded not guilty and went to trial were
Rebekah Brooks,
Andy Coulson,
Charlie Brooks,
Clive Goodman,
Ian Edmondson,
Stuart Kuttner, Cheryl Carter and Mark Hanna.
Trial
The trial began on 28 October 2013.
At the start of the trial, the court was told by counsel for the crown,
Andrew Edis QC, that
Rebekah Brooks and
Andy Coulson had an affair over a period lasting at least six years from 1998 to 2004, the period when much of the alleged conspiracy is claimed to have taken place.
On 12 December 2013, the judge announced that Ian Edmondson was ill and unlikely to recover for several weeks, so the trial would proceed without dealing with the charges against him, they would be dealt with at a later trial.
On 24 June 2014 the jury found Coulson guilty of one charge of conspiracy to hack phones; it failed to agree a verdict on two other charges of conspiring to cause misconduct in public office in relation to the alleged purchase of confidential royal phone directories in 2005 from a palace police officer. Brooks and five other defendants were found not guilty.
Prime Minister
David Cameron
David William Donald Cameron, Baron Cameron of Chipping Norton (born 9 October 1966) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016. Until 2015, he led the first coalition government in the UK s ...
was criticised in court by the trial judge for public remarks he made in response to the guilty verdict while the jury was still considering the outstanding charges against Coulson and Goodman.
On 30 June 2014 the trial judge, Mr Justice Saunders, announced that Coulson and the News of the World's former royal editor, Clive Goodman, would face a retrial on the outstanding charges.
On 4 July 2014 Coulson was one of four ex-journalists at the ''News of the World'' to be sentenced, along with private investigator
Glenn Mulcaire. The sentences were: Coulson - 18 months, former chief reporter
Neville Thurlbeck and news editor
Greg Miskiw - six months each, former reporter
James Weatherup - four-month suspended sentence, former private investigator
Glenn Mulcaire - six-month suspended sentence. Weatherup and Mulcaire also received 200 hours of community service.
A court hearing in July 2014 established that Ian Edmondson was fit to continue. On 3 October 2014, Edmondson changed his plea to guilty, becoming the eighth person to be convicted of phone hacking at the now-defunct News of the World. He admitted conspiring with colleagues and private detective
Glenn Mulcaire to intercept private voicemails between 3 October 2000 and 9 August 2006. These included the voicemails of two home secretaries, also, Sir
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained global fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and the piano, and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John ...
and the actors
Jude Law
David Jude Heyworth Law (born 29 December 1972) is an English actor. He began his career in theatre before landing small roles in various British television productions and feature films. Law gained international recognition for his role in An ...
and
Sienna Miller. The court heard that Edmondson tasked Mulcaire with hacking some 344 times.
Sentencing
On 7 November 2014, Mr Justice Saunders jailed Edmondson for eight months, saying that he only had himself to blame.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Coulson Brooks
2013 in London
Trials in London
Trials of political people