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Operation Elveden: Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks face charges | Operation Elveden: Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks face charges |
(35 minutes later) | |
Ex-Downing Street communications chief Andy Coulson and ex-News International executive Rebekah Brooks are to be charged in connection with payments to police and public officials. | |
The Crown Prosecution Service said they were among five people to face action as part of the inquiry. | |
The others are journalists Clive Goodman and John Kay and Ministry of Defence employee Bettina Jordan Barber. | |
Operation Elveden is the Met Police investigation into corrupt payments. | |
The five have been charged with conspiring to commit misconduct in public office. | |
Mr Goodman is the former royal correspondent of the now-defunct News of the World newspaper. | |
And Mr Kay is the former Sun chief reporter. | |
Mr Coulson and Mr Goodman are to be charged with two conspiracies relating to the request and authorisation of alleged payments to public officials in exchange for information, including a royal phone directory known as the "Green Book". | |
'Public interest' | |
It is said to have contained contact details for the Royal Family and members of the royal household. | |
The two counts of conspiracy to commit misconduct in a public office involve one between 31 August 2002 and 31 January 2003 and another between 31 January and 3 June 2005. | |
Ms Barber, Mr Kay and Mrs Brooks face one count of conspiracy to commit misconduct in a public office between 1 January 2004 and 31 January 2012. | |
Alison Levitt QC, principal legal adviser to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), said: "All of these matters were considered carefully in accordance with the DPP's guidelines on the public interest in cases affecting the media. | |
Other inquiries | |
"This guidance asks prosecutors to consider whether the public interest served by the conduct in question outweighs the overall criminality before bringing criminal proceedings." | |
The five are set to appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court on a date to be fixed. | |
So far 52 people have been arrested as part of Operation Elveden. | |
Two of them, a retired police officer and a former journalist, have been informed that they will face no further action. | |
Operation Elveden is being run alongside two other inquiries - Operation Weeting, which is looking at allegations of phone hacking, and Operation Tuleta, an inquiry into accusations of computer hacking and other privacy breaches. |