Rebekah Brooks, 43, former chief executive of News International, was arrested by the Metropolitan Police on Sunday afternoon in London in connection with the investigation into the phone-hacking scandal.
Ms Brooks had made an appointment to meet the Met police for questioning Sunday afternoon, but was arrested at the police station and is still in custody. However, she is expected to be released on bail after the police finishes this round of questioning. She is the 10th person to be arrested by the police in the phone hacking case since the reopening of investigations in January this year. Prime Minister David Cameron’s former aide Andy Coulson, ex-editor of the now defunct News of the World, was arrested and got bail on July 8. All those arrested in the investigation till now are on bail at present.
“At approximately 12.00 hrs a 43-year-old woman was arrested by appointment at a London police station by officers from Operation Weeting together with officers from Operation Elveden and is currently in custody,” the Met police said in a statement without formally identifying her. Ms Brooks’ identity as the person arrested was later confirmed.
“Rebekah is assisting the police with their enquiries. She attended a London police station voluntarily. Rebekah was informed about a pre-arranged interview with the police on Friday. She was arrested upon arrival at the police station today,” her spokesperson Dave Wilson confirmed to SkyNews Sunday afternoon.
She was arrested over allegations of corruption and phone hacking. “She was arrested on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications, contrary to Section 1(1) Criminal Law Act 1977 and on suspicion of corruption allegations contrary to Section 1 of the Prevention of Corruption Act 1906,” the police said, adding that “it would be inappropriate to discuss any further details at this time.”
Ms Brooks, who resigned as News International CEO on Friday morning, is due to meet the House of Commons select committee on culture, media and sport on Tuesday afternoon to answer questions on the phone hacking scandal.
Ms Brooks’ arrest was welcomed by politicians, but concerns have been raised whether the arrest will interfere with the hearing of the Commons select committee on Tuesday afternoon, which the former News International CEO was due to attend.
“I always though she should have been arrested in 2003, when she admitted to paying police officers to a Commons select committee,” Labour MP Chris Bryant said on Sunday. His colleague Tom Watson, also a Labour MP, said on Twitter: “Had she made her appointment to be arrested before confirming attendance at our committee? I wouldn’t be surprised.”
The arrest of Ms Brooks comes as Met police commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson is facing increasing censure over his links to News International. His five-week stint at a luxurious health spa in Hertfordshire in January has linked him to former News of the World deputy editor Neil Wallis, who was arrested last week. Even Commons select committee chairman John Whittingdale, a Tory MP who is due to question the Murdochs and Ms Brooks over the phone hacking scandal on Tuesday afternoon, has been revealed to be friends with Ms Brooks and News Corp’s former chief executive Les Hinton by the Independent on Sunday.
Labour Party leader Ed Miliband on Sunday called for the breakup of the UK media empire owned by Mr Rupert Murdoch, claiming he has “too much power over British public life.”
“I think that we’ve got to look at the situation whereby one person can own more than 20 per cent of the newspaper market, the Sky platform and Sky News. I think it’s unhealthy because that amount of power in one person’s hands has clearly led to abuses of power within his organisation. If you want to minimise the abuses of power, then that kind of concentration of power is frankly quite dangerous,” he told the Observer newspaper.
British public opinion seems to agree with Mr Miliband, and a ComRes survey for the Independent on Sunday revealed that eight out of 10 people think the phone-hacking scandal has spread to all News International titles: The Sun, The Times and The Sunday Times. Significantly, seven out of 10 people see Mr Murdoch and his son James as “not fit and proper” to take full control of BSkyB.
The public hostility to the Murdochs comes as News International issued a second apology in the form of full-page advertisements in British newspapers, titled “Putting right what’s gone wrong”.
“We are appalled by the allegations that some individuals at the News of the World failed to uphold the values of decency and the rule of law. This led to the closure of the newspaper. Our obligation does not end there,” the ad says.
“Apologising for our mistakes and fixing them are only the first steps. It may take some time for us to rebuild trust and confidence, but we are determined to live up to the expectations of our readers, colleagues and partners. We will not stop until these matters are resolved,” the company promised.
After British actor Jude Law decided to file a legal challenge against News International, the Sunday Telegraph claimed that footballer David Beckham is set to sue the firm over the phone-hacking. Meanwhile, the row between former Prime Minister Gordon Brown and News International became murkier after it emerged that the Labour MP had called in the Met police over allegations.
“Gordon Brown, the former Prime Minister, has taken the extraordinary step of calling in the police simply because the Sunday Times wrote him a letter. The letter questioned the accuracy of Brown’s claim that this newspaper had hired ‘known criminals’ to target the ‘completely defenceless’. Instead of responding to the questions, Brown said he would hand the letter to the police. It is not clear why he did so — the letter contained nothing incriminating,” the newspaper said on Sunday.