Rebekah Brooks charged in phone-hacking scandal

Today, Rebekah Brooks was charged with interfering with a police investigation into a phone-hacking scandal that has shaken the media and has rocked the British political establishment.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Brooks, a close confidante of Rupert Murdoch, was charged with concealing material from detectives, conspiring to remove boxes of archive records from Murdoch's London headquarters, and hiding computers, documents, and other electronic equipment from the police. The news is embarrassing for British Prime Minister David Cameron, who was friends with Brooks and her husband and a personal blow for Murdoch. "I have concluded ... there is sufficient evidence for there to be a realistic prospect of conviction," said Alison Levitt, Principal Legal Advisor to the Director of Public Prosecutions. "All these matters relate to the ongoing police investigation into allegations of phone hacking and corruption of public officials in relation to the News of the World and The Sun newspapers," Levitt said. The maximum sentence for perverting the course of justice is theoretically a life prison term. "We deplore this weak and unjust decision," Rebekah and Charlie Brooks said in a statement. Brooks edited the News of the World from 2000 to 2003 and continued to become the first female editor of the Sun daily tabloid, which is Britain's most widely ready newspaper, for roughly six years. As a result of the scandal, Murdoch closed the News of the World. Brooks was promoted to run Murdoch's British newspaper from 2009 to 2011, but Brooks, 43, was forced to resign after being arrested over allegations of intercepting communications and corruption She was again detained in March, with her husband, over the accusations relating to perverting the course of justice. Police re-launched an investigation and claims that journalists at the News of the World hacked into the phones of celebrities, politicians, and victims of crime to generate front-page stories. More than 160 staff are now working on one of the biggest investigations the London police has ever carried out, and almost 50 people have been arrested so far.

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