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| Blair Is Cited in Email at Trial on Tabloid Hacking in Britain | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| LONDON — Tony Blair is the latest high-profile person to surface in the British phone hacking trial, a high-stakes criminal prosecution of shadowy practices at Rupert Murdoch’s tabloid The News of the World. | LONDON — Tony Blair is the latest high-profile person to surface in the British phone hacking trial, a high-stakes criminal prosecution of shadowy practices at Rupert Murdoch’s tabloid The News of the World. |
| According to an email written by Rebekah Brooks, the former head of Mr. Murdoch’s British newspaper empire, Mr. Blair, the former prime minister of Britain, offered to act as an “unofficial adviser” to Mr. Murdoch and to herself. Ms. Brooks is one of eight defendants in the case and is expected to give evidence for the first time on Thursday. | According to an email written by Rebekah Brooks, the former head of Mr. Murdoch’s British newspaper empire, Mr. Blair, the former prime minister of Britain, offered to act as an “unofficial adviser” to Mr. Murdoch and to herself. Ms. Brooks is one of eight defendants in the case and is expected to give evidence for the first time on Thursday. |
| In an hourlong phone conversation days before Ms. Brooks’s arrest in July 2011, Mr. Blair told her to “keep strong” and take sleeping pills, according to the email, to Mr. Murdoch’s son James, in which she relayed the conversation. It was read out by the prosecution in court on Wednesday. | In an hourlong phone conversation days before Ms. Brooks’s arrest in July 2011, Mr. Blair told her to “keep strong” and take sleeping pills, according to the email, to Mr. Murdoch’s son James, in which she relayed the conversation. It was read out by the prosecution in court on Wednesday. |
| The email to James Murdoch, dated July 11, 2011, said Mr. Blair “is available for you, K.R.M.” — shorthand for the elder Mr. Murdoch’s full name, Keith Rupert Murdoch — “and me as an unofficial adviser, but needs to be between us.” | The email to James Murdoch, dated July 11, 2011, said Mr. Blair “is available for you, K.R.M.” — shorthand for the elder Mr. Murdoch’s full name, Keith Rupert Murdoch — “and me as an unofficial adviser, but needs to be between us.” |
| “It will pass,” Mr. Blair told her, according to the email, advising her to commission an independent inquiry, “Hutton-style.” The 2004 Hutton report cleared the Blair government of wrongdoing over its handling of intelligence about unconventional weapons in Iraq. He even suggested the name of an outside lawyer, Ken Macdonald, “a great and good type,” the email read. On July 15 of that year, Ms. Brooks resigned from News International, the umbrella company covering the Murdoch newspapers in Britain, and on July 17, she was arrested. | “It will pass,” Mr. Blair told her, according to the email, advising her to commission an independent inquiry, “Hutton-style.” The 2004 Hutton report cleared the Blair government of wrongdoing over its handling of intelligence about unconventional weapons in Iraq. He even suggested the name of an outside lawyer, Ken Macdonald, “a great and good type,” the email read. On July 15 of that year, Ms. Brooks resigned from News International, the umbrella company covering the Murdoch newspapers in Britain, and on July 17, she was arrested. |
| Mr. Blair’s office issued a statement on Wednesday saying that he had been “simply giving informal advice over the phone.” | Mr. Blair’s office issued a statement on Wednesday saying that he had been “simply giving informal advice over the phone.” |
| “If what he was being told by Ms. Brooks at the time was correct, and there had been no wrongdoing, then a finding to that effect by a credible inquiry would be far better than an internal and therefore less credible investigation,” the statement said. | “If what he was being told by Ms. Brooks at the time was correct, and there had been no wrongdoing, then a finding to that effect by a credible inquiry would be far better than an internal and therefore less credible investigation,” the statement said. |
| The trial has become one of the most high-profile criminal prosecutions in recent times here. | The trial has become one of the most high-profile criminal prosecutions in recent times here. |
| The disclosure in 2011 that journalists at The News of the World had years earlier intercepted the voice mail messages of a kidnapped teenager who was subsequently found dead caused widespread outrage in Britain. The case has since mushroomed, involving more than 160 Scotland Yard police officers and staff members and at least 1,000 likely victims from politics, sports and the media, as well as Prince William and his future wife, Kate Middleton. Mr. Murdoch shuttered the newspaper in 2011 as the scandal deepened. | The disclosure in 2011 that journalists at The News of the World had years earlier intercepted the voice mail messages of a kidnapped teenager who was subsequently found dead caused widespread outrage in Britain. The case has since mushroomed, involving more than 160 Scotland Yard police officers and staff members and at least 1,000 likely victims from politics, sports and the media, as well as Prince William and his future wife, Kate Middleton. Mr. Murdoch shuttered the newspaper in 2011 as the scandal deepened. |
| Ms. Brooks, 45, editor of The News of the World and The Sun before she ran News International, is accused of condoning if not encouraging such practices among journalists, of bribing at least one official, and of conspiring with her husband to hide evidence. Like all her co-defendants, she has pleaded not guilty. | Ms. Brooks, 45, editor of The News of the World and The Sun before she ran News International, is accused of condoning if not encouraging such practices among journalists, of bribing at least one official, and of conspiring with her husband to hide evidence. Like all her co-defendants, she has pleaded not guilty. |
| The case has been closely watched for how it may prompt efforts to tone down Britain’s cacophonous journalism industry to avoid similar misconduct in the future. It has also been a window into the intimate ties at the top of news media and political power here. The email disclosing the “between us” counsel Ms. Brooks received from Mr. Blair, himself a friend of the Murdochs, was further evidence of that intimacy. | |
| Ms. Brooks, a longtime protégée of Mr. Murdoch’s, has been called his “fifth daughter” in the British news media. She was named editor of The News of the World at 31 and ran his British newspaper business at 41. Prime Minister David Cameron was a friend and neighbor in the Oxfordshire countryside who rode her husband’s horses. He and his immediate predecessor, Gordon Brown, reportedly both attended her wedding, as did Mr. Murdoch. | Ms. Brooks, a longtime protégée of Mr. Murdoch’s, has been called his “fifth daughter” in the British news media. She was named editor of The News of the World at 31 and ran his British newspaper business at 41. Prime Minister David Cameron was a friend and neighbor in the Oxfordshire countryside who rode her husband’s horses. He and his immediate predecessor, Gordon Brown, reportedly both attended her wedding, as did Mr. Murdoch. |
| Adding drama to the trial — and steamy love letters to the pile of evidence — have been revelations that Andy Coulson, her deputy editor and successor at The News of the World and more recently Mr. Cameron’s chief spokesman, was also Ms. Brooks’s lover of six years. | Adding drama to the trial — and steamy love letters to the pile of evidence — have been revelations that Andy Coulson, her deputy editor and successor at The News of the World and more recently Mr. Cameron’s chief spokesman, was also Ms. Brooks’s lover of six years. |