Brooks denies love affair lasted 6 years

BRITAIN

REBEKAH BROOKS said yesterday that she did not wait around like ‘‘Miss Havisham’’ in the novel Great Expectations for Andy Coulson after it emerged that she wrote ‘‘for six years, I waited’’ to her secret lover and fellow editor.

Brooks, 45, denied a six-year affair with Coulson but agreed in court that in April 2002, at the time of the hacking of the schoolgirl Milly Dowler’s phone, he could ‘‘completely trust’’ her with anything.

An Old Bailey jury has previously been told that Brooks, former chief executive of News International, and Coulson, the Prime Minister’s former spokesman, began an on-off affair in 1998. It was uncovered when police investigating hacking found an anguished letter from Brooks, written in February 2004 when Coulson, 46, broke off the relationship.

Andrew Edis, QC, for the prosecution, said yesterday that an excerpt in which she wrote ‘‘for six years, I waited’’ suggested an affair over the entire period. Brooks said that was incorrect. She said: ‘‘If it was true, I’d say. In that time I had got back together with Ross [Kemp] and got married, got a house together, tried to have a baby. Andy Coulson had got on with his life. I hadn’t been sitting there like Miss Havisham.’’

Brooks was on holiday in Dubai with Kemp in April 2002 when Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator, hacked Milly’s phone. The court has been told that she was in phone and text contact with Coulson, her then deputy at the News of the World, but has said it could have been about ‘‘anything’’.

Edis said yesterday: ‘‘If the deputy editor was committing a crime, he might not want his editor in normal circumstances to find out about it. But he might have told his editor if he really trusted her. Was the relationship in April 2002 such that Coulson could completely trust you with any confidence at all?’’ Brooks replied: ‘‘Yes.’’

Brooks and Coulson deny involvement in a phone-hacking conspiracy at the News of the World, which was closed in 2011. Their trial, with that of five others, continues.