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Rebekah Brooks, Former NOTW Chief Executive Questioned Over Payments To MoD Officials

PA/Huffington Post UK  |  By   |  Posted: 21/03/2012 16:57 Updated: 21/03/2012 17:32

Rebekah Brooks
Rebekah Brooks has been questioned over payments to MoD officials

Former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks was questioned by police today about payments to Ministry of Defence officials.

She is understood to have been asked about evidence handed over by News Corporation's Management and Standards Committee,

The 41-year-old was answering bail in Milton Keynes relating to her first arrest by Operation Weeting last summer.
Both Scotland Yard and Mrs Brooks's spokesman declined to comment.

Mrs Brooks, a former editor of The Sun, was first arrested by detectives in July on suspicion of phone hacking and corruption, days after she quit News International.

She answered bail today after being rearrested last week with her racehorse trainer husband Charlie on suspicion of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

Police searched several addresses in Oxfordshire, London, Hampshire and Hertfordshire after the couple were held along with four other suspects.

Her lawyer, Stephen Parkinson, recently said evidence given by Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers at the Leveson Inquiry had brought "much prejudicial material" into the public domain.

Mrs Brooks' relations with top police officers and politicians have been called into question in recent weeks after it emerged that she "fostered" a police horse when it retired from active service in 2008.

She paid food and vet bills until the animal, called Raisa, was rehoused with a police officer in 2010, months before fresh investigations began into illegal activities at the News of the World.

A total of 22 people have been arrested under Weeting, which has been running since January last year, Scotland Yard said.

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Former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks was questioned by police today about payments to Ministry of Defence officials. She is understood to have been asked about evidence handed o...
Former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks was questioned by police today about payments to Ministry of Defence officials. She is understood to have been asked about evidence handed o...
 
 
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GC007
37 Fans
03:54 PM on 03/22/2012
You are showing too much passion my friends. Calm down, sit back and let "Levinson" spend millions on an enquiry that will bring many people "to the surface" and show many more to be "saving their ar...es" (or at least trying to). Until all the evidence has been heard and until all the individuals concerned have been questioned we will not KNOW what has been happening, it will be pure speculation. The saga of the horse I am afraid is a non-starter. Davis Cameron has known Mr Brooks for 20+ years (well before either of them could raise a smile) and we can't ask anybody to stop seeing an old friend because one is PM & the other trains horses. That ex-police horse had a good life with Mrs Brooks & I think it was a good choice by the police to home it there. Let us judge this with all the facts and then hit the guilty very hard, whoever they might be.
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stoke
47 Fans
03:44 PM on 03/22/2012
I question why they never had such a thorough investigation into the MP's expenses. There were many, many MP's, many still serving, who committed criminal offences such as deception and false accounting but got of 'scot free' by just paying back what the had stole from us.
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vinniedog
65 Fans
12:08 PM on 03/22/2012
Wheres her mate Dave ? Has he dumped her now plod are involved ?? Just gotta love the tories and their dealings
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lawblynn
38 Fans
10:58 AM on 03/22/2012
Obviously as bent as a nine bob note. No doubt we will never know the full truth as the "old boys" network will do all it can to protect themselves. It is more than obvious that News Corp is rotten through and through and the Government should step in and compulsory wind up the whole sorry mess. Any senior company manager culpable in any way should be locked up and the key thrown away.
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stoke
47 Fans
03:45 PM on 03/22/2012
And so is the government.
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welshtaff
22 Fans
09:42 AM on 03/22/2012
Where's the tax man for all these payments, bet there'd be a heck of a lot of tax due to be paid
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Drg40
Representative Democracy is all we have.
65 Fans
08:35 AM on 03/22/2012
If we're going down the route of charging everyone for any and all crimes they commit, particularly those crimes which are an affront to our justice system , there are a numbers of witnesses to the Leveson inquiry who have given their evidence under oath that should reasonably expect to see life from behind bars. Whichever side you fall on, the diametrically opposed versions of the truth we derive from the inquiry clearly shows that there are some people whose concept of 'truth' is extremely dodgy. If it offends Brook's lawyer that people have been declaiming in public under oath that Brooks is a liar, maybe he needs to consider a new profession. Is he advocating secret courts for Murdoch's minions, so that the contrary views to the litany of Murdoch's well publicised lies will never be aired in public? As to the suggestion that Murdoch's new found spirit of co-operation with the UK police is based on a sense of civic duty, instead of a desire to deflect the interests of the FBI in the USA, surely that could only be advanced by someone who is in receipt of Murdoch dollars.
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mmgg
6 Fans
12:39 PM on 03/22/2012
Nobody accused her of being a liar under oath. Only Paul McMullan characterized her in a bad way without providing any kind of evidence when he talk to the inquiry. And if you go to the Leveson inquiry page you'll see that his witness statement was not published at all as it was not adduced in evidence.

http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/evidence/?witness=paul-mcmullan

Also her lawyer was talking not only for Brooks but for all the Sun journalists. Do you think it was fair of Akers to go and say what she said to the Leveson inquiry back in February when some of the people that police wanted to question about the case were not questioned yet? Brooks was questioned about the case yesterday and the defense editor was also questioned in March. It was like, "ok we are going to questioned you someday about this but we've already made our assumptions before you talk.... we don't care about what you are going to say or not " attitude.
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Theatrixnyc
Remember John Lennon:Power To The People!
3905 Fans
02:05 PM on 03/22/2012
Most Perps and Suspects don't have a PR Machine working for them 24/7 either.....trying to control public opinion of Murdoch and Brooks.
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Drg40
Representative Democracy is all we have.
65 Fans
02:38 PM on 03/22/2012
Mcmullen's witness statement was given under oath. Brooks was party to the 'one rogue reporter' argument, now known to have been a lie. Morgan was called a liar almost before he had finished giving his evidence to the inquiry I think it was absolutely fair of Akers to suggest to the public, via the inquiry, that Murdoch's era of lies, distortion, bullying and attempts to overturn democracy by falsely representing the news and a successful regime of censorship across many news outlets was at an end. If it was essential to do her best to reassure the public that after a very dodgy period where the Met may have been corrupted, that they were now on the case and would brook no interference by the Murdoch minions, then good. I also note that Brooks lawyer is attempting to influence the court and the process of justice before charges have even been laid. But then, that's how Murdoch's minions seem to work. Let's see how Brooks fares against a charge of attempting to pervert the course of justice, if such a charge is brought, since that's an entirely different ball game.
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mmgg
6 Fans
04:22 AM on 03/22/2012
Judging from some of the comments below, her lawyer was right by saying that nor she neither the Sun's journalists can ever have a fair trial...

So she was answering her bail and she was questioned about payments from the Sun to MoD officials. Does this make her guilty? Do we even know what the case she was questioned about was? What if it finally comes out that this case was purely in public interest? There was a lot of outrage by the other media (even the ones that were very critical of NI before) about MSC giving evidence to the police that lead to the Sun arrests. Some very interesting articles were written then by many about "paying public officials" and public interest. Also, don't you find it strange that Akers gave evidence to the Leveson about the Sun cases weeks before the police questioned all the people they wanted? Isn't that prejudicial? Was this fair especially if there were pending questionings about this?

On the other hand we have The Telegraph that paid 150 000 to public officials for the Mps expenses scandal. Other editors went to the Leveson inquiry and said that their papers had paid public officials in the past for public interest stories. None of them was questioned by the police and if it was in the public interest it's right they weren't. I don't think that their companies are as willing as News Corp. to give evidence to the police about that stories.
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Gavin Saunders
we only have each other
960 Fans
08:55 AM on 03/22/2012
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/mar/18/rebekah-brooks-worry-fair-trial

How much do you think the police can do at any given time without drawing criticism that this is all they are doing? At the moment they are concentrating on this lot after which there will be a precedent for handling the others, ever more expediently one would hope.
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mmgg
6 Fans
12:58 PM on 03/22/2012
Interesting article. There is always the opposite side of an argument which I always respect. It's fundamental for a good dialogue.
Here is another article published at the same paper with a completely different approach.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/mar/13/rebekah-brooks-fair-trial-leveson-inquiry
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mmgg
6 Fans
01:07 PM on 03/22/2012
Also, i don't argue that Brooks or the other people from the Sun should not be questioned about the cases. If the police want to question them, they can whenever they want. My point was that Akers said what she said at Leveson about the Sun paper and journalists, while at the next moment she said that they are just in the beginning of this investigation (meaning that nothing is decided yet and more people would be questioned).
And let's just think about it... We actually don't know what the case is or what the evidence is. We must keep every possibility in mind. If for example after just answering a bail about this specific case (that Akers talk) the reaction was "she is guilty", "lock her up", "throw the key" etc (that I've read both in many sides and on the twitter), can you imagine what the reaction would be if after all this time and all this investigations and questionings the police inquiry finishes and not a single charge is brought against Brooks because there were not enough evidence to build a case against her or because she was actually telling the truth... Isn't that prejudice or not?
We must keep every possibility open, and innocent until proven guilty is a fundamental principle of every legal system and every police inquiry in every democratic republic.
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ronnieince
57 Fans
09:24 AM on 03/22/2012
All we have to date is unsupported allegations - none even sufficent to bring charges - 40 arrests over the last 9 months - not a single person charged let alone tried and found guilty .

We do not even know if any of those arrested have said anything to the police which assists the police in any way .
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eyedinnot
9 Fans
12:21 AM on 03/22/2012
Lets face it these so-called journos thought they could do whatever they liked, they were mixing in the very best social circles don't you know. I do wonder when the Prime minister might be called to give evidence? Core rotten the to...
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freddiefoden
13 Fans
11:46 PM on 03/21/2012
I hope that they haven't been lending her horses too ?.
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alangraham05
19 Fans
11:08 PM on 03/21/2012
i still think she's too rich and has too many powerful friends to go to jail. but i sit in hope.
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ashootist
28 Fans
09:05 PM on 03/21/2012
whats new, everyone in the country knows this countys government and its various agencies are corrupt and have been for years. Why are so many people surprised, the MP's expenses fiddle was only the tip of the iceberg, if the revenue and customs could be bothered they would never get out of London for tax investigations and fraud claims
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ajairley
30 Fans
01:03 AM on 03/22/2012
The way in which evidence was given by a high ranking police officer was designed to make it impossible to come to trial as the evidence given to the enquiery could be said to predijuice any jury/.as for cameron as crooked as a corkscrew.
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geoff ward
19 Fans
09:00 PM on 03/21/2012
Spring Sale !!! 20% discount on broomsticks. ( Batteries not included )
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Charley007
41 Fans
08:20 PM on 03/21/2012
This whole hacking thing is getting very very boring!!
Who really cares?
The Dowlers and others are the only ones that have really suffered and should be compensated the rest of the celebs love all the free publicity they are getting.
At theend of the day I lay odds NO ONE will be prosecuted because the press has published articles that will prejudice any trial(s)!!
It is time for this to be put to bed once and for all !!
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Gavin Saunders
we only have each other
960 Fans
08:56 PM on 03/21/2012
Rubbish and any bias to declare?

Has it escaped you that merely commenting on a thread about it indicates interest; The Guardian is doing a roaring trade in it and there's so much yet to be revealed and cleaned up.
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brinberlin
176 Fans
09:32 PM on 03/21/2012
"Who really cares?"
I think many of us care. When governments and scummy papers like the NoW and Sun are in cahoots, when the Sun in particular wielded (and still does) so much power that almost no one dare criticise it and the appalling damage it does, then the fact that loads of its 'journalists' and now an ex-editor (the disgusting Brooks, SO into naming and shaming, SO wanting to crackdown on crime) have been arrested is, to say the least, interesting. and gratifying. I hope that if guilty then, to use the Sun's favourite expression (which they have in huge imperative headlines but always attribute to someone else) LOCK THEM UP AND THROW AWAY THE KEY! HANGING IS TOO GOOD FOR THESE SCUM!
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