|
 Brooks, a friend of Prime Minister David Cameron, answered
questions in court for the first time on the hacking scandal which
has convulsed Britain's elite and forced Murdoch to close the
168-year-old tabloid at the center of the scandal, the News of the
World.
Opening Brooks's defense within a packed court room on day 62 of the
trial, Jonathan Laidlaw urged the jury to forget the myth that had
built up around one of the most famous women in Britain, and to
focus on the specific charges.
He was speaking shortly after the judge ruled that Brooks had been
acquitted on one of the five charges she was facing, relating to one
charge of authorizing an illegal payment for a picture of Prince
William in a bikini. She denies all the other charges.
"It is time for you to see Mrs Brooks as she is, not as she is
described or spoken of, but as she is," Laidlaw told the jury,
adding that the time had come for them "to begin the process to work
out if there is any truth in the allegations made against her".
Laidlaw said he would have more to say later in the trial about
Brooks's treatment "at the hands of the police and the prosecution
and about the approach that has been taken to her case".
PRINCE PICTURE
He told the jury Brooks was not on trial for her role as a senior
editor to Murdoch, or the influence that this gave her.
"She is not being tried, is she, because she was the editor of a
tabloid newspaper," he said.
"Neither is she on trial for having worked for Rupert Murdoch's
company or for having worked her way up literally from the bottom
through that organization."
Laidlaw said Brooks was not being tried for her political views or
the stance of News International, News Corp's British newspaper arm
which she ran until 2011.
"She's not being tried for News International's strategy, for its
policies, its influences or its corporate views."
Brooks took the stand for the first time on Thursday, wearing a blue
dress and white cardigan, and appeared apprehensive as she started
answering questions about how she had got into journalism.
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She occasionally cast glances at her husband who is in the dock
accused of helping her to hide evidence from police.
"My mum says I told her when I was eight I wanted to be a
journalist," she said, before noting to the judge that mothers tend
to say that sort of thing.
The jury was told she moved to the News of the World to work on its
magazine as a researcher in 1989, and later as a writer. Asked how
good she was at interviewing people for stories, she said: "Well I
kept my job so I must have been alright."
Despite a lack of experience and only basic journalism training, the
court heard how she rapidly rose through the ranks. By March 1994,
she was deputy features editor and the following September, at the
age of just 27, was made acting deputy editor of what was then
Britain's biggest selling newspaper.
Brooks, 45, is still accused of four other offences relating to
conspiracy to hack voicemail messages on mobile phones, authorizing
illegal payments to public officials and then plotting to hinder a
subsequent police investigation.
Before she began her defense, the jury were instructed by the judge
overseeing her trial at London's Old Bailey court to return a
verdict of not guilty on one of two charges against her of
conspiracy to commit misconduct in a public office.
This related to an allegation that Brooks had approved an illegal
4,000-pound ($6,700) payment for a picture of Prince William dressed
as a "James Bond girl" and wearing a bikini while at a military
academy party in 2006.
"I have decided there is no case for Mrs Brooks to answer on count
four, that is the charge relating to the picture of Prince William
in a bikini that was acquired by the Sun newspaper," the judge,
Justice John Saunders told the jury.
(Editing by Stephen Addison and Alison Williams)
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