Editors’ affair revealed in hacking case
BRITAIN
THE two tabloid editors at the centre of Britain’s phone-hacking trial had a secret six-year affair, at the end of which Rebekah Brooks wrote to Andy Coulson: ‘‘I love you . . . You are my very best friend ... I tell you everything,’’ the Old Bailey heard yesterday.
It is alleged that Brooks and Coulson oversaw phone hacking and corruption at two of the country’s biggest newspapers.
Details of the clandestine relationship were made public during the second day of their trial, where they are accused of overseeing a decade of illegal activity at The Sun and The News of the World.
As the couple sat side by side in the dock of Court 12, neither showed any emotion as intimate details of their long-running affair were laid bare.
Brooks’ husband, racehorse trainer, Charlie, 50, whom she married in 2009, sat several places away from her in the dock.
The jury heard that it was unclear whether Coulson, who went on to become Prime Minister David Cameron’s director of communications, had ever seen the letter before.
Jurors were told that in 2011, police who had been investigating the phone hacking scandal discovered a computer in the wardrobe of Brooks’ London home.
Stored on the computer was a letter she had written to Coulson in 2004, describing her heartache at his decision to end their affair.
Brooks confesses that she was frightened to be without him.
She wrote: ‘‘The fact is you are my very best friend. I tell you everything, I confide in you, I seek your advice, I love you, care about you, worry about you.
‘‘We laugh and cry together ... in fact without our relationship in my life, I am really not sure how I will cope. I’m frightened to be without you.’’
The details of the affair came on the second day of the trial, during which the prosecution continued to outline its case against a number of former executives.
Among the allegations heard
also yesterday were claims that the now defunct News of the World used phone hacking to obtain details of the private lives of a string of Cabinet ministers.
Jurors were also told how, in the ‘‘dog-eat-dog world of journalism’’, reporters went to great lengths to spy on the opposition, hacking the phones of staff at the Mail on Sunday in order to spoil their scoops.
The court was
told
that ‘‘accomplished blagger’’ and phone hacker Glenn Mulcaire showed Ian Edmondson, News of the World’s news editor, how to hack into the voicemail messages of Lord Freddie Windsor, a member of the royal family.
The paper was hacking the voicemails of missing schoolgirl Milly Dowler, the court heard, while also trying to get an exclusive interview with her parents.
Andrew Edis QC, prosecuting, said that the affair was relevant to the phone-hacking trial because it showed the closeness of Coulson and Rebekah Brooks and therefore explained how they both were culpable of the alleged conspiracy. He told jurors: ‘‘The point that I’m going to make in relation to that letter is that throughout the relevant period what Mr Coulson knew Mrs Brooks knew too, and what Mrs Brooks knew Mr Coulson knew too.
‘‘That’s the point because it is clear from that letter that as at February 2004 they had been having an affair which had lasted at least six years. So that takes us right back to 1998, which is the whole of the conspiracy period.
‘‘Let me be clear about why I am telling you this, it isn’t to intrude into their privacy – it has that effect of course.
‘‘It is of no real significance to this prosecution how people choose to behave, this isn’t in any way a moral judgment.’’
Edis read the final part of the letter to jurors to illustrate just how close Coulson and Brooks had been during their affair.
Brooks wrote that finding out about Coulson’s life from others ‘‘fills me with absolute dread’’.
Referring to their future relationship, she wrote: ‘‘I don’t understand this, we are either there for each other or we are not.
‘‘How will this work for you and manifest itself. Do we limit contact until we absolutely have to?’’
She added: ‘‘Obviously I can’t discuss my worries, concerns, problems at work with you anymore or vis a vis.
‘‘I assume until I hear otherwise we will keep our professional relationship at a minimum and avoid if possible without being awkward.’’