Rebekah Brooks 'had her phone hacked twice a week at the Sun'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/feb/29/rebekah-brooks-phone-hacked-sun

Version 0 of 1.

Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of News International, had her phone hacked by News of the World twice a week when she was editor of the Sun, the Leveson inquiry has heard.

The inquiry was told on Wedneday that Brooks heard from Scotland Yard detectives in 2006 that her phone number had appeared in the notes of Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator used by the Sunday tabloid, and asked whether she wanted to make a complaint to the police.

This emerged when Robert Jay QC, counsel to the inquiry, was quizzing one of the detectives in charge of the original Metropolitan police investigation into News of the World phone hacking in 2006.

Jay explained to the inquiry that Brooks, then known by her maiden name Rebekah Wade, "was one of the most accessed since 2005 – twice a week" and the police sought a meeting with her to discuss it further.

Earlier this week the Leveson inquiry was shown an email from the head of legal affairs at the News of the World in September 2006 to the then editor of the paper, Andy Coulson.

In this email, Crone noted that the police were "going to contact RW [Rebekah Wade] today to see if she wishes to take it further".

Jay said on Wednesday: "This relates to a formal complaint that Rebekah Wade might make in her capacity as a victim."

Detective chief superintendent Philip Williams told the inquiry News International had been "obstructive" and was not forthcoming with information in relation to the police investigation into Mulcaire.

Williams said he was stonewalled when he wrote a letter to Burton Copeland, the law firm acting for the News of the World, demanding documents relating to Mulcaire's contract and details of phone numbers that could have been used to hack phones.

"All you got from the solicitors acting for News of the World was extremely limited, evidentially," Jay put it to Williams, to which he replied: "Yes."

An internal memo from Keith Surtees, the officer who arrested Mulcaire and the News of the World royal editor Clive Goodman in August 2006, to Williams, said: "The News of the World were obstructive."

Despite the suspicion that there were hundreds of victims and that News of the World journalists other than Goodman ordering the hacking of the phones, the police did not investigate further, the inquiry heard.

Williams did not go to court to seek a production order forcing the company to disclose documents, nor did he ask for a staff list that may have helped identify names in Mulcaire's notes of News of the World journalists who may have ordered hacking.

Jay accused Williams of being "painstakingly cautious" and inferred this was the reason why the original police investigation failed to identify the industrial scale of hacking that was being undertaken at the time.

He said Williams could have gone to a magistrates' court and told the judge of a "a pathetic response to our letter" to News International solicitors Burton Copeland and won a production order forcing the publisher to hand over key evidence.

Williams told the inquiry repeatedly that this would have involved a "step change" in the scale of the investigation and that in August 2006 the team, whose main business was anti-terrorism, was under enormous pressure because of the threat of a terrorist attack on several planes around the UK.

He denied he was intimidated by News International or that the police enjoyed a "cosy" relationship with any executives there.

However, the inquiry heard that Williams's boss, Met deputy assistant commissioner Peter Clarke, decided in "September or October" 2006 not to extend the inquiry beyond Goodman and Mulcaire, who pleaded guilty and were jailed in January 2007 for offences relating to voicemail interception.

• To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".

• To get the latest media news to your desktop or mobile, follow MediaGuardian on Twitter and Facebook