Chris Bryant, who has personally clashed with Brooks in the past, condemned the apparent reappointment of Brooks as chief executive of News Corp’s UK operations – a year after she was cleared of all charges related to the phone-hacking scandal.
He claimed it was evidence Murdoch had only feigned remorse over the scandal that rocked his empire and suggested the controversial news had been leaked ahead of the bank holiday weekend to limit its impact.
Bryant, who was compensated with £30,000 by the newspaper company after it was revealed he was a victim of phone hacking by the News of the World, said he also believed the move was premature given the Crown Prosecution Service is said to be still considering corporate charges against News Corp.
The MP said: “Rupert Murdoch has just stuck two fingers up to the British public and the thousands of people whose phones were hacked by News International.
“However you cut it, his newspapers hacked thousands of phones and made money out of the private lives of ordinary members of the public who only came into the limelight because they were victims of crime.
“Hundreds of ordinary journalists lost their jobs when Mr Murdoch closed the News of the World, but it seems Rebekah Brooks is to get very special treatment. Clearly Mr Murdoch was only feigning humility when he appeared before the DCMS [Department of Culture, Media and Sport] select committee.”
Bryant continued: “This decision is ludicrously premature when the CPS is still considering corporate charges against News Corp, when the House of Commons privileges committee has still to rule on whether three News Corp executives lied to Parliament, as claimed by the select committee when it was chaired by John Whittingdale, and when the Leveson inquiry has to still to complete the second part of its work into the events at the News of the World.
“It shows the utter contempt in which the Murdochs hold the British public that the announcement has been snuck out on the August bank holiday weekend.”
Brooks edited both the Sun and the News of the World in a long career at Rupert Murdoch’s company.
She resigned as UK chief executive in July 2011 in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal, which eventually closed the paper, walking away with £10.8m as “compensation for loss of office”.
Brooks denied any involvement in hacking and was cleared of charges in June last year. Andy Coulson, another former News of the World editor and David Cameron’s former director of communications, was jailed after being convicted of conspiracy to hack phones.
Evan Harris, the joint executive director of Hacked Off, the media reform campaign group, also spoke of his anger at Murdoch’s decision, which was revealed in the Financial Times.
“This could only happen in a dynastic company where normal rules of corporate governance simply do not apply,” he said.
“Mrs Brooks’s successful defence at trial was that she was such an incompetent executive that she was unaware of industrial-scale criminal wrongdoing in intercepting voicemails and bribing public officials, and unaware of the vast conspiracy to cover it up, despite her admitting to destroying millions of emails and putting the company’s reputation before cooperation with the police.
“Her failure has cost the company £300m and then there is the £16m pay-off she received while scores of her newspapers’ sources have gone to jail.”
However Roger Alton, a former editor of the Observer and the Independent, who recently retired as executive editor of the Times, accused critics of the news of “fighting interminable old battles” and argued the phone hacking scandal was “in the past”.
Alton told BBC Radio 4’s Today that Brooks was “an extremely effective, talented person, most likeable, extremely good with people. He [Murdoch] values loyalty, she was very loyal and he has been very loyal to her.
“The phone hacking scandal is in the past. The verdicts have been delivered. It is quite clear that juries don’t buy a lot of the arguments that were being used at the time. Some people pleaded guilty and served their time. The punishments have happened.”
Brooks was cleared of all charges following a 138-day trial at the Old Bailey, as was Stuart Kuttner, the former managing editor of the News of the World. The former News of the World journalists Greg Miskiw, Neville Thurlbeck, James Weatherup and Ian Edmondson pleaded guilty to their role in the hacking, along with the private detective Glenn Mulcaire.
Original Article
Source: theguardian.com/
Author: Daniel Boffey
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