Rebekah Brooks sees off the first of five charges
I am by no means an apologist for Rebekah Brooks but, equally, I have repeatedly argued that she ought not to be the sole scapegoat for phone hacking. Yesterday, after the first of five charges in her trial was dismissed, a milestone was reached and it is one that I suspect may set the way for what is to come in the phone hacking trial.
Brooks has become the poster girl for all that is wrong about the media despite actually having been an example of a lady whose career path has been meteoric. The daughter of a gardener and born in Warrington, Cheshire, this redhead was once described as a “likeable, skinny, hollow-eyed girl who was very ambitious” by Private Eye. Her lawyer in this case was quite right to comment:
“She is not being tried because she was the editor of a tabloid newspaper… Neither is she on trial for having worked for Rupert Murdoch’s company”.
The case against Brooks looks increasingly weak. As with other trials of this nature, one is starting to see a pattern of what is to come emerging. In the meantime, I’d suggest that the bashing of Brooks in the popular press ceases.
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