Former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks ordered an elaborate cover-up operation in order to hide notebooks and computers from police, the Old Bailey hears.
The trial into alleged phone hacking by senior staff at the News of the World heard that Ms Brooks instructed her personal assistant, Cheryl Carter, to retrieve seven notebooks from the News of the newspaper’s archive, two days before the tabloid was due to close.
The claim came as the prosecution in the case closed its opening statement to the court. The phone-hacking trial also heard from the defence barrister for Andy Coulson, former editor at the News of the World, who said Mr Coulson had not been aware of hacking at the newspaper.
Timothy Langdale QC, representing Mr Coulson, said: “He will in due course go into that witness box and give evidence to you. He will tell you what happened when he was deputy editor of the News of the World and then editor.
More: read all the developments from the phone hacking trial
“Certainly something went badly wrong at the News of the World during his watch. He recognises that and resigned as editor of News of the World after Mr Goodman and Mr Mulcaire had pleaded guilty and been sentenced in January 2007 for phone hacking.
“He wishes he had made some different decisions. We shall be saying to you that although he might wish he made some different decisions he did not commit these offences.”
The barrister added: “It’s his case that he was never party to any agreement to hack phones, whatever others might have been doing on his watch.”
Prosecutor Andrew Edis QC told jurors that the material, said to be Brooks’ notebooks from 1995 to 2007, has never been recovered.
“They agreed to extract seven boxes of notebooks from the News International archive where they had been stored and to spirit them away”, Mr Edis said.
Arrangements were made to retrieve material from both of these addresses with a view to preventing the material coming to the possession of the police. Andrew Edis QC
A jury was also told that, on the day of Brooks’ arrest, 17 July 2011, she sent a security team, headed by her husband Charles, to strip their homes in London and Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, of computers and other incriminating material.
Mr Edis said: “At the time when Mrs Brooks was arrested, the prosecution say she knew she was likely to be arrested and if she was, the police would then have the power to search the places where she lived.
Edis tells jury: inconceivable that anyone wld have hidden any of RB’s property without her knowledge, agreement and consent.
— Andy Davies (@adavies4) November 4, 2013
“This included a place called Jubilee Barn in Oxfordshire, which was her and her husband’s country home, and the London flat.
“Arrangements were made to retrieve material from both of these addresses with a view to preventing the material coming to the possession of the police.”
Mr Edis described a process to the court, by which a jiffy bag and laptop were allegedly left behind some bins in a London car park by Mr Brooks, and picked up later by Mark Hanna, the head of security at News International.
Hiding evidence was not acceptable at any time that year. Andrew Edis QC
The jury was also told of text between the security men hired to protect Brooks’, which read: “Broadsword calling Danny Boy. Pizza delivered and chicken is in the pot”.
Mr Edis described this “whole exercise” as “quite complicated and quite risky and liable to go wrong, as it did”.
Edis to jury: 12.15pm Charles Brooks exits lift into Thames Quay car park with a Jiffy bag and a laptop…returns to lift empty-handed.
— Andy Davies (@adavies4) November 4, 2013
Prosecution claim Mark Hanna, head of News Intl security, then picks up Jiffy bag and laptop from bins area over an hour later.
— Andy Davies (@adavies4) November 4, 2013
Earlier, the court was told that the situation at the News International had become “more fevered” as it came under investigation by police.
Mr Edis said: “This was a huge business for News International and for her (Brooks). There were inquiries ongoing. At all times she was of course aware that there was a police inquiry, Operation Weeting, which had in fact started when News International handed over these three emails.
“So there was always a course of justice in existence that could be perverted by hiding evidence. Hiding evidence was not acceptable at any time that year. The atmosphere, we would suggest, became even more fevered as time went on.”
Ms Brooks, her one time lover and former news of the World editor Andy Coulson, former news editor Ian Edmondson and former managing editor Stuart Kuttner all deny of one count of conspiracy to intercept communications.
Brooks also denies two counts of perverting the course of justice and two counts of conspiracy to commit misconduct in a public office.
Mr Coulson, with Clive Goodman, also denies two counts of misconduct in a public office. Ms Carter, Mr Hanna and Mr Brooks all deny conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.
The trial continues.