London: The jury in the phone-hacking trial has been told not to envy the lifestyle enjoyed by the defendants and to remember that no one is so powerful that they can ignore the law.
In his summing-up of the case, which is now in its 126th day at the Old Bailey central criminal court in London, Justice Saunders told jurors that “everyone is entitled to their privacy” and not to have their phones hacked.
He said the jury should not to be “dazzled” by the fact that some of the defendants, which include former News of the World editors Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson, were friends of politicians and stars and were in positions of influence.
The jury already knows that Brooks received advice from Tony Blair at the height of the phone-hacking scandal.
“Some of those on trial enjoyed a lifestyle you can only dream of, not just in financial terms but influence they brought to bear,” Saunders said. “They were friends of politicians, they are friends of the stars. Many people only get to see them in the cinema or the football pitch. “You do not envy them their success or be dazzled by it. “Respect their success but everyone is subject to the law of the land — no one is so powerful they can ignore the law.”
Saunders gave detailed directions to the jurors on how they should consider each count against the seven defendants and addressed allegations by the prosecution that some defendants may have lied or withheld evidence during police interviews that they later relied on court.
He told jurors that Brooks was being tried on a number of different bases, one of which was that at the very latest she must have known that the missing child Milly Dowler’s phone was hacked was in April 2002 when she returned from holiday.
She was editor of the News of the World at the time, but was away in Dubai the week it carried a story which contained references to the missing schoolgirl’s voicemails. The paper was edited by her deputy, Coulson, who the judge reminded jurors had said he hadn’t rated the Dowler story and had moved it back in the paper between editions. Saunders said if the jury was “sure” that the prosecution’s allegation that Brooks would have learned about the Dowler story, and therefore the hacking, on her return from Dubai, it was entitled to conclude “that Rebekah Brooks has lied in her evidence given on oath as she said she did not know phone hacking of Milly Dowler’s voicemails until revealed by the Guardian on 4 July 2011”.
The Guardian
