Phone Hacking: Three Journalists Plead Guilty

Three former News Of The World journalists have pleaded guilty to phone hacking charges.

The Old Bailey heard on Wednesday that ex-chief correspondent Neville Thurlbeck, former assistant news editor James Weatherup, and ex-news editor Greg Miskiw had pleaded guilty at earlier hearings.

Private investigator Glenn Mulcaire had also admitted hacking the phone of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler, prosecutor Andrew Edis QC said.

The revelations came at the beginning of a trial of another eight defendants who face 15 phone hacking-related charges between them.

Ex-News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks and former NOTW editor and ex-Downing Street spin-doctor Andy Coulson, both 45, are accused of conspiring to illegally access voicemail messages, as well as making illegal payments to officials.

Both deny all charges, as do the other six defendants.

Opening the case for the prosecution, Mr Edis told jurors that "journalists are no more entitled to break the criminal law than anybody else".

He said there was "no justification" for newspaper staff to get involved in phone hacking or to make payments to public officials.

Jurors would have to decide whether Brooks and Coulson knew about the illegal behaviour of the three journalists who had pleaded guilty, Mr Edis said.

"There was phone hacking, and quite a lot of it," said the barrister.

"Given they (Brooks and Coulson) were so senior, if they knew about it, well obviously they were allowing it to happen.

"They were in charge of the purse strings."

Mr Edis said Mulcaire had been paid more than £100,000 a year by the News Of The World to hack phones and that such an "extraordinary arrangement" must have required high-level approval.

Coulson and Brooks are alleged to have conspired with former NOTW head of news Ian Edmondson, the tabloid's ex-managing editor Stuart Kuttner, and others to illegally access voicemails between October 3, 2000, and August 9, 2006.

Celebrities including Kate Moss, Joanna Lumley and Will Young were named in court as some of the defendants' alleged victims.

Brooks is also charged with two counts of conspiring with others to commit misconduct in public office - linked to alleged inappropriate payments to public officials.

One of the payments she authorised was £40,000 to a Ministry of Defence official for information, the jury was told.

Brooks faces another two allegations of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice in July 2011.

The first alleges she conspired to remove seven boxes of material from the News International archive with former personal assistant Cheryl Carter.

The second alleges that Brooks, her husband Charles Brooks and former head of security at News International Mark Hanna conspired to conceal documents, computers and other electronic equipment from police.

Coulson is also facing two allegations that he conspired with the tabloid's former royal editor Clive Goodman to commit misconduct in public office.

The prosecution claims the two men paid a police officer for a notebook containing phone numbers of the Royal Family

The phone hacking investigation began in January 2011 and led to the closure of the News Of The World and the Leveson Inquiry into press standards.

The trial was adjourned until Thursday when the prosecution will continue its opening.