Rebekah Brooks tells Leveson of more meetings with David Cameron

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/may/11/rebekah-brooks-leveson-cameron-meetings

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After a morning of Leveson inquiry testimony from Rebekah Brooks, No 10's worst fears over what the former News International boss might reveal about their relationship have not been realised. But Brooks did disclose a number of details about their communication and meetings that will embarrass the prime minister and lead to further questions about the appropriateness of their relationship.

These included Brooks telling Lord Justice Leveson on Friday morning that she exchanged up to two texts per week with David Cameron during the 2010 general election campaign. He signed off texts with "DC" or sometimes "LOL" – until she explained that the latter phrase meant "laugh out loud", not "lots of love". However, Brooks dismissed as "ludicrous" reports that they exchanged texts up to 12 times a week.

Brooks also confirmed for the first time that she was at a Boxing Day party with Cameron in December 2010. This came three days after she entertained the prime minister at her Oxfordshire home, with a dinner during which News Corporation's £8bn bid for BSkyB was discussed.

She said she could recall a conversation in 2010 with Cameron on the subject of phone hacking , in which the NI chief executive updated him about developments in the growing number of civil cases.

Brooks told the inquiry Cameron was one of a number of politicians, including George Osborne and Tony Blair, who sent her messages of support – indirectly, in the prime minister's case – after she resigned at the height of the News of the World phone-hacking scandal in July 2011.

Around this time there had also been a single email message from Cameron to her BlackBerry, but it was "compressed" and therefore "there's no content in it", Brooks said.

Brooks disclosed she was at a "mulled wine, mince pie" party at which Cameron was presenton Boxing Day 2010 at "my sister-in-law's". But she was unsure if she spoke to Cameron or his wife Samantha at the event, although "my sister-in-law tells me they were definitely there".

She also said Cameron was told over dinner three days earlier that News Corp hoped the company's £8bn bid for BSkyB would be judged fairly in the aftermath of Vince Cable being stripped of the power to adjudicate on the takeover.

The prime minister was at the social event at Brooks's Oxfordshire home on 23 December 2010, which came at a crucial point in the bid approval process and two days after Cable, the business secretary, had been replaced by the culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, as the minister responsible for the BSkyB bid.

James Murdoch, News Corp's deputy chief operating officer – and at the time News International chairman –was also present at the 23 December dinner. Murdoch had previously told the inquiry he had a brief conversation there with the prime minister about the bid.

Brooks told the Leveson inquiry that the bid came up at the dinner, but was not widely discussed. "It was mentioned because it was in the news, because obviously Dr Cable had resigned from that role," she said, referring to the fact that the business secretary had been stripped of responsibility to approve the bid after being covertly recorded saying he had "declared war on Murdoch".

The former NI chief executive was asked by Robert Jay QC, counsel to the inquiry, if she was "party to any conversations along the lines that Dr Cable had acted in breach of duty, let's hope the next one, Mr Hunt, does not".

Brooks replied: "Not necessarily, but clearly that was our view. We hoped that … it would be a very fair process and that it would be fair and democratic" now that Hunt had been handed the task. Brooks added it had been disappointing "to find out that perhaps some personal prejudice came into that decision" – referring to Vince Cable – and "at least now the decision would be fair".

The end of 2010 was a critical moment in the BskyB bid process, not just because of the Cable row. Ofcom was due to send a report evaluating whether the bid would raise any concerns about "media plurality" at the very end of the year – a document that was the basis for personal negotiations between Hunt and News Corp over the bid in the first three months of 2011.

Brooks also revealed that she first became aware of the planned BSkyB bid "six [to] eight weeks" before it was disclosed in public in June 2010 – just before the general election in May. She said she had little involvement in the bid. But Leveson queried if her early knowledge would at least be useful to help with "the public presentation, perhaps the way in which the criticisms could be countered".

Brooks told the inquiry she could recall a conversation with Cameron on the subject of phone hacking during 2010, in which she updated him about developments in the growing number of civil cases. She said that the prime minister – who at that point was still employing former News of the World editor Andy Coulson – had asked her for an update as part of a general conversation of which she could only remember part.

"I think it had been on the news that day, and I think I explained the story behind the news. No secret information, no privileged information, just a general update. I'm sorry I can't remember the date, but I just don't have my records," she added.

Jay pressed Brooks to reveal what the PM had said, or how he had responded to what she had told him. The counsel to the inquiry asked if Cameron was having "second thoughts" about hiring Coulson, his then director of communications, but Brooks replied firmly: "No, not in that instance, no."

However, Brooks said she could not remember to which development in the civil cases their conversation could have referred. During 2010, a handful of celebrities were bringing phone-hacking claims against the News of the World, the most high profile of which came from Sienna Miller.

On Thursday, Coulson told the inquiry he had had no conversations with Cameron about the phone-hacking allegations at any time apart from an initial conversation in May 2007, when he was appointed as the Conservative party's director of communications.

Brooks, in her evidence on Friday, repeatedly denied that politicians lived in fear of the Sun or that she was unhealthily close to them. After Jay had pressed her on this point, Leveson invited Brooks to consider the issue again: "Can you understand where [it] might be a matter of public concern, that a very close relationship between journalists and politicians might create subtle pressures on the press, who have the megaphone and on the politicians who have their policy decisions?' Brooks replied "yes", she could see that point.