Coulson & Brooks hacking trial starts today
Discussion
Derek Smith said:
Brooks will come out of this will no damage if she is found NG despite everything that has been revealed in the case.
I feel sure she'll go down for the PCoJ charge - the other charges I am not so sure (even though to me, it is inconceivable she didn't know about phone hacking)Whether she is found guilty or not - she's always going to be tainted ...
uk66fastback said:
Derek Smith said:
Brooks will come out of this will no damage if she is found NG despite everything that has been revealed in the case.
I feel sure she'll go down for the PCoJ charge - the other charges I am not so sure (even though to me, it is inconceivable she didn't know about phone hacking)Whether she is found guilty or not - she's always going to be tainted ...
Steffan said:
If Rebecca Brooks is found Not Guilty then she should be entirely free from any tainting from this trial.
I don't know, look at Mitchell, Huhne, Pryce and Briscoe the way crimes are reported whether they happened or not. The public disgrace in the press would seem in many cases worse than any sentence meted out by the courts.Look at what the Judge said about that couple from Glos. for neglecting their children, their sentence and the way it has been reported.
Why do we need the police to tell us what to think after people are convicted? Isn't that part of the punishment just as any sentence is?
Steffan said:
If Rebecca Brooks is tainted after being found not guilty then justice has not been done. Otherwise there is no such thing as presumption of innocence. If Rebecca Brooks is found Not Guilty then she should be entirely free from any tainting from this trial. The trial judge may well make that point if not guilty verdicts are returned. We do not have a not proven verdict in England (as yet). Personally I think most of the defendants are guilty. I do think the case against Ms Brooks husband s thin. Indeed paper thin.
Why do you think evidence against him is paper thin? If Brooks is found not guilty then justice has been done (legally). If she is tainted in the eyes of the public/the papers etc/business, then so be it.
Edited by uk66fastback on Tuesday 17th June 01:46
outnumbered said:
There is very detailed coverage here: http://www.thedrum.com/users/jamesdoleman
Thanks - some interesting reading in there! 
Steffan said:
If Rebecca Brooks is tainted after being found not guilty then justice has not been done. Otherwise there is no such thing as presumption of innocence. If Rebecca Brooks is found Not Guilty then she should be entirely free from any tainting from this trial. The trial judge may well make that point if not guilty verdicts are returned. We do not have a not proven verdict in England (as yet). Personally I think most of the defendants are guilty. I do think the case against Ms Brooks husband s thin. Indeed paper thin.
There has been a considerable number of revelations during the trial. Whether these will indeed taint her I don't know, but it would hardly be an injustice if they did despite a NG. If she has suggest that she really didn't know what was going on then that might be a defence but it would taint her (if anyone believed it). It's a bit like Harris. He has admitted to a string of liaisons with various women and girls, including close friends of the family. Taint is, in his case, putting it mildly regardless of the outcome. I think, to a certain extent, the same goes for Brooks.Mind you, nothing has come out in the trial which has surprised anyone and the 'little girl lost in a big bad, male dominated, hard drinking world' type of defence is a risk.
As for Coulson, my information, coming second had from someone who has been at the trial fairly frequently, is that he's going down. Info on her is that the jury might be reluctant to convict if they believe she was not quite hands-on enough and her only error was trusting people too much. (Pause in typing for a quick vomit.) The fact that other newspaper staff knew what was going on in her company, but she didn't, shows just how innocent a child she was.
But then, I've sat through whole trials (apart from before I gave evidence) and the verdicts in each case have surprised me.
What the judge says before the jury pisses off is the important bit in most 'cases'. The deference given to him/her during a trial rubs off on the jury normally and they tend to put more emphasis on what come from the parson in charge in comparison to the bit-part players.
outnumbered said:
My guess is that Charlie Brookes, Rebekah Brookes and Mark Hannah will be not guilty on their PCOJ charge; Rebekah Brookes & Cheryl Carter will be not guilty on their PCOJ charge; Goodman & whoever else was accused of paying a public official (for the royal phonebooks) will be not guilty of that. For all these charges, I don't think the prosecution have shown evidence "beyond reasonable doubt".
I do think that Coulson will be found guilty of knowingly being involved in phone hacking, and probably Rebekah Brookes as well. Not sure about Kuttner.
Requoting my earlier reply, this is what I reckon based on reading all the coverage as the trial went along. Of all of the defendants, I think Coulson is the most certain to be convicted, and given that he was so close to Rebekah Brooks, I think it's likely the jury would also convict her as there's no way she couldn't have known about it.I do think that Coulson will be found guilty of knowingly being involved in phone hacking, and probably Rebekah Brookes as well. Not sure about Kuttner.
Derek Smith said:
Mind you, nothing has come out in the trial which has surprised anyone and the 'little girl lost in a big bad, male dominated, hard drinking world' type of defence is a risk.
That was a bit of a surprise:http://order-order.com/2014/02/19/care-blair-was-a...
carinaman said:
Was very enlightening, and probably says more about a Mr Blair than ms Brooks though.Derek Smith said:
Mind you, nothing has come out in the trial which has surprised anyone and the 'little girl lost in a big bad, male dominated, hard drinking world' type of defence is a risk.
...Snip...Derek Smith said:
The fact that other newspaper staff knew what was going on in her company, but she didn't, shows just how innocent a child she was.
It's almost as if her defence is that she cannot do her job....Starfighter said:
Derek Smith said:
Mind you, nothing has come out in the trial which has surprised anyone and the 'little girl lost in a big bad, male dominated, hard drinking world' type of defence is a risk.
...Snip...Derek Smith said:
The fact that other newspaper staff knew what was going on in her company, but she didn't, shows just how innocent a child she was.
It's almost as if her defence is that she cannot do her job....Starfighter said:
It's almost as if her defence is that she cannot do her job....
I guess it depends what her job was? She was a lady that lunched?http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/jul/...
Muncher said:
There aren't many press outside the Old Bailey so they're clearly not expecting a verdict any time soon.
There are a lot of charges to go through and one would assume the jury are doing their job conscientiously so one would not expect them to come back after having a fag or two. But I wonder if, with the weekend looming, they might return with some verdicts and tell the court they can't decide on others.carinaman said:
I guess it depends what her job was? She was a lady that lunched?
http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/jul/...
This shows the depth of the problem with the media trying, and succeeding, to influence those in authority.http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/jul/...
The first lay person into #10 after the elections was Murdoch. Aspirants for the leadership of the party can be identified in two ways: the number of meetings/meals they have with Murdoch and the number of policies they profess to believe in which are based on the McTaggart lectures.
We've recently had some ambitious aspirant say that after the next election he'll push to have the TV licence fee reduced. This is something that little me Murdoch has suggested a number of times. May and Gove have frequent meetings with Murdoch.
Yet Murdoch said, in an interview with Thomas Kierman:
"You tell these bloody politicians whatever they want to hear, and once they deal is done you don’t worry about it. They’re not going to chase after you later if they suddenly decide what you said wasn’t what they wanted to hear. Otherwise they’re made to look bad and they can’t abide that. So they just stick their heads up their asses and wait for the blow to pass – "
Yet they still treat him like a god.
Reading the memoirs of a former downing street advisor (Lance Price possibly) it seems that in the Blair years policy was decided as follows.
1) Alistair Campbell would come up with an idea and he and TB would discuss it at length.
2) Then Rupert would be consulted to ensure the correct headlines would ensue.
3) Once the three of them had decided the policy, TB might try and deal with GB if he couldn't be ignored.
4) Then the rest of the cabinet would be 'informed'.
5) Then the rest of the press.
6) Then parliament.
1) Alistair Campbell would come up with an idea and he and TB would discuss it at length.
2) Then Rupert would be consulted to ensure the correct headlines would ensue.
3) Once the three of them had decided the policy, TB might try and deal with GB if he couldn't be ignored.
4) Then the rest of the cabinet would be 'informed'.
5) Then the rest of the press.
6) Then parliament.
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