Rebekah Brooks may face further charges over phone hacking, Rupert Murdoch suns himself on a gondola in Venice, tried asylum in Ecuadorian Embassy?

Dear All

When the can of worms that was phone hacking was opened up, the fallout has been impressive.

Rupert Murdoch saw his power base go very quickly among the Westminster elite on both sides of the House of Commons.

His loyal lieutenant Rebekah Brooks who he publicly backed to sort out the mess has been charged by Police.

Murdoch and Brooks, were once the king and princess of a media empire.

Rebekah Brooks is charged with perverting the course of justice.

Now Brooks looks weary and downtrodden as she arrived at Southwark Crown Court to be told she may be charged with further offences in relation to Scotland Yard's probe into phone hacking.

Southwark Crown Court is famous for jailing MPs who fiddled their expenses.

While Brooks wonders if she might see the inside of a prison cell, over the other end of the world, global media mogul, Rupert Murdoch relaxes 1,000 miles away.

Fun in the Sun!

Carefree Rupert is merrily strolling along the sun-drenched Venetian canal walks, laughing with wife Wendi Deng and their young daughters.

Back in London; Brooks sits stoney faced with Charlie and their four co-defendants in the shadow of gallows.

And I don’t see her getting sympathy from a jury.

A trial date for the allegations that she hid documents and computers from detectives investigating hacking and bribing public officials has been pushed back to see if she is to be charged with further offences in relation to the Met's Operation Weeting.

Andrew Edis QC, prosecuting, said:

“So far as Mrs Brooks is concerned it is well known that there are bail dates coming up in context of another investigation known as Operation Weeting at the end of July or in early August. No definitive timetable has been set out for any charging decision whether yes or no, nevertheless it is likely that if there is a charge in relation to her that might impact on this case if there isn't that might also. If there were to be charges then consideration might have to be given to the format of this whole trial, who is to be involved and how many trials and so on.”

Expect Edis to be keen, this case is a landmark case for him and his career.

Trial Judge Mr Justice Fulford agreed:

“You need to know if this trial as it is currently constituted is going to take place”.

Edis also said they hoped for a decision on further charges by August 22.

He added:

“We are confident that the decision will be taken in time for this case to proceed smoothly.”

Brooks formerly edited the News of the World from 2000 before taking the helm at The Sun in 2003.

In 2009 she became chief executive of News International, you could say she has had a high profile career in the media but everything turned sour and then she quit her post last July when everything came out.

The phone hacking of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler turned the public off; the Murdoch’s couldn’t reset their image with either the politicians or public. And the investigations rather than clearing the air have only served to muddy things up.

News International has done a lot of good in exposing corruption in British Society, but the methods used were questionable, some people went too far and the reasons weren’t in the public interest, they were purely about selling newspapers.

A culture exists which the editors should never have allowed in the first place.

Brooks standing in the dock is the end result.

So, does the public face match the private one?

Stick around there is going to be a trial.

Or there is the Ecuadorian Embassy which is very popular at the moment?

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University