Three former News Of The World journalists have pleaded guilty to phone hacking charges.
The Old Bailey heard on Wednesday that ex-chief correspondent Neville Thurlbeck, former assistant news editor James Weatherup, and ex-news editor Greg Miskiw had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to intercept communications at earlier hearings.
Private detective Glenn Mulcaire had also admitted hacking the phone of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler, prosecutor Andrew Edis QC said.
The revelations came at the beginning of a trial of eight defendants who face 15 phone-hacking related charges between them.
Rebekah Brooks denies the hacking charges Ex-News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks and former NOTW editor and ex-Downing Street spin-doctor Andy Coulson are accused of conspiring to illegally access voicemail messages on mobile phones. Both deny the charges.
Opening the case for the prosecution, Mr Edis told jurors "journalists are no more entitled to break the criminal law than anybody else".
He said there was "no justification" for newspaper staff to get involved in phone hacking or to make payments to public officials.
Jurors would have to decide whether Brooks and Coulson knew about the illegal behaviour of the three journalists who had pleaded guilty, Mr Edis said.
"There was phone hacking, and quite a lot of it," said the barrister.
"Given they (Brooks and Coulson) were so senior, if they knew about it, well obviously they were allowing it to happen.
Ex-Downing Street spin doctor Andy Coulson also denies the charges "They were in charge of the purse strings."
Mr Edis said that private detective Glenn Mulcaire had been paid around £100,000 a year by the News of the World and that such an "extraordinary arrangement" must have required high level approval.
Coulson and Brooks, both 45, are alleged to have conspired with former NOTW head of news Ian Edmondson, the tabloid's ex-managing editor Stuart Kuttner, and others to illegally access the voicemails between October 3, 2000 and August 9, 2006.
Celebrities including Kate Moss, Joanna Lumley and Will Young were named in court as some of the defendants' alleged victims of phone hacking.
Brooks is also charged with two counts of conspiring with others to commit misconduct in public office - one between January 1, 2004 and January 31, 2012 and the other between February 9, 2006 and October 16, 2008 - linked to alleged inappropriate payments to public officials.
One of the payments she authorised was £40,000 to a Ministry of Defence official for information, the jury was told.
Brooks faces another two allegations of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice,
It is alleged she conspired to remove seven boxes of material from the News International archive between July 6 and 9, 2011 with former personal assistant Cheryl Carter.
The second count alleges that Brooks, her husband Charles Brooks and former head of security at News International Mark Hanna conspired together and with others between July 15 and July 19, 2011 to pervert the course of justice.
It is claimed that they tried to conceal documents, computers and other electronic equipment from police officers who were investigating allegations of phone hacking and corruption of public officials in relation to the News of the World and The Sun newspapers.
Coulson is also facing two allegations that he conspired with the tabloid's former royal editor Clive Goodman, and persons unknown to commit misconduct in public office - between August 31, 2002 and January 31, 2003, and between January 31 and June 3, 2005.
The phone hacking investigation began in January 2011 and led to the closure of the News of the World and the Leveson Inquiry into press standards.
More follows...
Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang
Phone Hacking: Three Journalists Plead Guilty
Dengan url
https://usiabelajarudin.blogspot.com/2013/10/phone-hacking-three-journalists-plead.html
Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya
Phone Hacking: Three Journalists Plead Guilty
namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link
Phone Hacking: Three Journalists Plead Guilty
sebagai sumbernya
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar