LONDON — British prosecutors accused former Rupert Murdoch aide Rebekah Brooks and five others of obstructing justice yesterday in the first criminal charges from the News of the World phone hacking scandal. The ex-News International (NI) chief executive, her husband Charlie Brooks and four people who worked for her were charged with trying to hide evidence from

police investigating wrongdoing at the now-closed tabloid.
Brooks, 43, and her husband, 49, who is a former racehorse trainer and school friend of Prime Minister David Cameron, said the decision was “weak and unjust”.

Cameron and Charlie Brooks were school friends at the elite Eton College and he attended the Brooks’s wedding in 2009. Senior prosecutor Alison Levitt said in a television statement that there was “sufficient evidence for there to be a realistic prospect of conviction” in six cases of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.
The charges are a stunning fall from grace for the woman who started on the bottom rung of Murdoch’s empire more than two decades ago but eventually became so close to him that she was dubbed his “fifth daughter.”

Instantly recognisable with her shock of flame-red hair, Brooks also moved in the highest circles of British politics, and testified to a press ethics inquiry just last week about her close relationship with Cameron.
The others to be charged are Cheryl Carter, Rebekah Brooks’s personal assistant; Mark Hanna, head of security at NI; Brooks’s chauffeur Paul Edwards, who was employed by NI, and Daryl Jorsling, who provided security for Brooks that was supplied by NI.
All six are due to appear in court in London at a later date, Levitt said.

The maximum sentence for perverting the course of justice is life imprisonment, but jail terms are normally far shorter.
Rebekah and Charlie Brooks condemned the charges — and effectively broke the news of them by releasing a statement several minutes before prosecutors officially announced them.

“We deplore this weak and unjust decision. After the further unprecedented posturing of the CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) we will respond later today after our return from the police station,” the couple said. — AFP.