Phone-hacking trial told of Rebekah Brooks's last days at News International
|
Version 0 of 1. On the day she resigned as News International's chief executive in July 2011, Rebekah Brooks was officially declared "a person of interest" to police and escorted out of the building by security staff who then changed the locks on her office door, an Old Bailey court heard on Thursday. Jane Viner, responsible for security at the company's headquarters, said she and security staff had taken Brooks from the tenth-floor executive area at the request of detectives who also searched her office that evening. Brooks carried nothing more than her handbag as she left. "She was quite upset and subdued," Viner told the jury at the phone-hacking trial. "It was very uncomfortable." The court heard that Brooks's resignation followed a chain of events after the disclosure on 4 July that the News of the World had hacked the phone of the missing schoolgirl Milly Dowler in 2002. The following day, the company's head of security, Mark Hanna, emailed Brooks to tell her of his plans to deal with the media and police. Hanna told her he had spoken to her husband, Charlie, who had agreed that it would be best if they stayed overnight at their flat in Chelsea rather than returning to their home in Oxfordshire. "We will have in place the same process as before [team etc] who will notify me if they see the media around the area. I will then naturally let you know soonest. Likewise, it may be worth switching vehicles for the next few days. If this is a media only concern, I believe this should suffice. If police concern, we put in place the previous plan of entry and exit teams," Hanna wrote. On the Saturday evening at the end of the week, Viner told the jury, when the final edition of the News of the World had been produced, she had supervised the sealing of the paper's second-floor office, from which staff were allowed to remove only personal belongings. On the Sunday, she said, they had given a number to every desk, computer and set of under-desk drawers and transferred their contents to safe storage at News International's former HQ in Wapping. The personal offices of the editor, Colin Myler, and other senior staff were sealed until they could be searched by detectives. Viner said it was on the morning of the following Friday, 15 July, that she had learned of Brooks's resignation. Viner was then called to the office of News International's general manager, Will Lewis, who told her that the police wanted Brooks out of the building by lunchtime. At 11.50am, she had gone to Brooks's office with Lewis and the company's PR man, Simon Greenberg. She had then explained to Brooks that, like the News of the World staff, she could take away only her personal belongings. "Then Mr Lewis asked me and Simon Greenberg and security staff to escort Mrs Brooks out of the building, which I did." Earlier, the court heard that a prosecution witness, Brooks's former PA Deborah Keegan, had held a series of meetings with one of the defendants in the trial without asking police or prosecutors if that was acceptable. Keegan said she had met Cheryl Carter, who was Brooks' other PA and who is charged with conspiring to pervert the course of justice, five or six times. Keegan said she had also texted Carter and possibly emailed and phoned her. Andrew Edis QC, for the Crown, asked her: "Did you ask the police or the Crown Prosecution Service whether it was a good idea to meet?" "No I did not," replied Keegan. "I was led to believe it was the correct way to do things. We certainly weren't doing anything perverting." She said they had met in open places such as hamburger bars and had ensured there was always a third party with them. "The point was to see my friend who I had not been allowed to see for a long time, who was like family." Carter and Brooks deny conspiring to pervert the course of justice by destroying seven boxes allegedly containing 12 years of Brooks's notebooks. Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning. |