Andy Coulson and Clive Goodman to face retrial

 
Retrial: Andy Coulson
Paul Cheston30 June 2014
WEST END FINAL

Get our award-winning daily news email featuring exclusive stories, opinion and expert analysis

I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice.

Andy Coulson must face a retrial on charges that he authorised illegal payments to government officials.

At the Old Bailey today prosecutors announced plans for a new trial and want Coulson and other defendants guilty of phone-hacking to pay a £750,000 legal bill.

Coulson, the former editor of the now-defunct News of the World, will stand trial with the paper’s former royal editor, Clive Goodman.

They are accused of conspiring to commit misconduct in a public office by paying a police officer for royal telephone directories.

Both Coulson and Goodman have pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The jury in the marathon phone hacking trial was unable to reach a verdict on the two charges and was discharged by the judge last week.

They had earlier found Coulson, 46, guilty of being involved in the conspiracy to snoop on the voicemails of a host of celebrities, royals, politicians and members of the public in the hunt for stories.

His former lover and colleague Rebekah Brooks was cleared of all charges on the 138th day of the trial, in which four more defendants were also found not guilty.

Coulson was appointed as Brooks’s deputy in 2000 and then took over as editor in 2003 when she moved to the Sun. He resigned in 2007 when Goodman, 56, and private detective Glenn Mulcaire were jailed for phone hacking after the first police inquiry.

After resigning from his post, he was recruited to help the Tories with their public relations, later becoming Prime Minister David Cameron’s head of communications.

Today Coulson, a married father of three from Charing, Kent, was back in the dock for the start of a sentencing process that is expected to last until the end of the week.

He was joined by Mulcaire, 43, of Sutton, and four senior journalists who have already admitted taking part in the hacking.

They are Greg Miskiw, 64, from Leeds, Neville Thurlbeck, 52, of Esher, James Weatherup, 58, of Brentwood, and Dan Evans, 38, of Kilburn.

Mulcaire has admitted three counts of conspiring to phone hack plus a fourth count of hacking the voicemail of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler in 2002 — an act which led to the downfall of the Sunday tabloid in 2011.

Prosecutor Andrew Edis QC told the court that CPS costs over the past two years for bringing the case to trial totalled about £1.7 million.

By deducting costs of the failed charges against the defendants found not guilty, he applied for the £750,000 figure — most of which would have to come from Coulson, who pleaded not guilty. However, Coulson is in discussions with his former employer Rupert Murdoch’s lawyers to see whether the multi-billionaire would pick up the bill.

Murdoch paid Coulson’s own legal fees — and those of Mrs Brooks, her husband Charlie, her PA Cheryl Carter and security chief Mark Hanna, who were all cleared.

The court heard that Mulcaire had tried to cover up Coulson’s part in the phone hacking of Milly Dowler.

Mr Edis said that the investigator had sought to implicate another senior NoW journalist in the hacking — while well aware that that person had not been employed by the NoW at the time.

Coulson was also involved in the decision to hold information from Milly’s phone for 24 hours before informing the police in order to safeguard their exclusive story.

“This was quite clearly a deliberate decision and if she had been alive during that 24 hours she would have been exposed to avoidable danger,” he said.

The prosecutor added that phone hacking at the NoW had reached “a golden period” in 2006 and then “turned in” on itself.

“In such a frenzy of activity mistakes started to be made. Mulcaire was tasked to hack other NoW staff — they are turning in on themselves,” said Mr Edis. “Coulson himself became a victim of his own conspiracy and others to be hacked included Rav Singh [showbiz editor] and Rebekah Brooks herself.”

Sentences are expected to be handed down by Mr Justice Saunders on Friday. The hearing continues.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in