The Brooks-Coulson trial was very narrowly focused on the hacking issue. It did not include the earlier police inquiries into the News of the World’s (NoW) involvement in blagging confidential records and bribing corrupt police for information in the late 1980s and 1990s. The jury was not shown Brooks’ evidence (no doubt a slip on her part, telling the truth) to the parliamentary media committee in March 2003 that her journalists had paid police for information in the past, which is of course a criminal offence. Ironically Select committee evidence is not admissible in court because of the rules protecting parliamentary privilege. Above all, the trial excluded the illicit and ruthless use of power by which the Murdoch press, and especially Brooks, destroyed individuals and suborned governments. Continue reading →