Rebekah Brooks statement on phone hacking

HampsteadOwl

There are two reasons why Brooks must, and will, go.

First, it happened on her watch and just a Coulson carried the can for other (less serious) examples, even though (as he claims) he knew northing, then so should she.

Secondly, golden girl as she might have been, she is not as important to Murdoch as owning 100% of Sky and if she is the sacrifice that has to be made for the greater good, then so be it.

MagicAldo

So, my staff may have been committing crimes on a daily basis, but I didn't notice, and I deserve to continue to receive my very large remuneration. Pathetic.

Hexhamgeezer

So, we are being asked to believe that poor Rebekah and NI are also victims and that they had no idea that non-celebs phones were also targetted.

victor jara 67

There was and is a culture at NOW of get the story at any cost and don't ask any questions.

She was the editor at that time and had been well tutored in the dark arts of the gutter press by the Australian thug. Therefoe she should resign now.

andrew kerins

Allowing her to stay in her job keeps a firewall between the scandal and Rupert Murdoch.
I doubt that many people will shed tears over her being used inthis way.

paul

sorry, Mmmmmm, you and all your lot at news international and sky should all go to prison if your guilty.

Rhoda Klapp

Implausiblr deniability.

DavidDP

She needs to step down. We keep hearing, particularly from NewsCorp, about how the private sector is all about taking responsibility as opposed the public sector. Let's see it in action.

commentator

With thanks to Lewis Carroll:

"I weep for you, the walrus said, I deeply sympathise. With streaming eyes he sorted out those of the largest size...."

JACKAL

Do me a favour

CaptainP

Interesting to note she denies knowledge of and sanctioning the allegations rather than denying knowledge of and sanctioning the actions of her journalists. No doubt a very carefully worded statement

les

I seem to remember innocent until proven guilty - or doesn't that apply to this?

Labour should be very careful about what they wish for especially as it all happened under their watch - things changed from September 2009 with "Labour's lost it" from the Sun, prior to that they were very cosy with Murdoch.

Norman Dee

I would now like to see the Labour party and the left wing press raise the same hue and cry they did to get Andy Coulson out of Downing Street. If they do not it will finally confirm that it was a totally political move of the worst type, and I would argue would even give Coulson potential evidence for action.

Sue Collini

Hunt should announce that approval for the NI/Sky deal is on hold pending the conclusion of police inquiries and a full public enquiry into phone hacking at NI and all other UK papers. If that takes two years, so be it. And it's hardly as if Murdoch is in a position to object.

Collini out.

Pot Head

Great interview with Hugh Grant on 5 Live http://bbc.in/kLNSYg

R5 Live "Do you think Rebekah Wade should resign?" Hugh Grant: "I think the whole country does!"

Wily Trout

I see the tabloid writing style pervades right up to the top, and right through to the letter-writing.

Red Weds

The sky is darkening with the wings of chickens coming home to roost.

Sir Everard Digby

Pot Head,

When I want Hugh Grant to speak for me,I will vote for him at an election.

The issue is that the media are scum and out of control;Murdoch was willing to jump into bed with any politician who would accomodate him. The Left,being dumb,assume that any change of allegiance from them is political. It's not -to Murdoch it's just business. And that's the problem. Any damage the media do,any method they use,however appalling is excused 'because it sells newspapers'

They don't see anything wrong in what the are doing.Even if there is a conviction or two,nothing will change. Politicians won't alienate the media as they need them.

Which leaves the rest of us up a certain creek sans paddle. Along with Hugh.

A question. If Murdoch offerred to switch allegiance to Labour,what would they do?

Ed B

"I have to tell you that I am sickened that these events are alleged to have happened."

What an odd sentence. Sounds like a non-denial denial to me.

Jake R

Strange that she didn't know but the News of the World had informed police of retrieved voicemails at the time (it was in their original story), and that the police thought nothing of it - until recently, for obvious reasons.

Would Brooks not have known that the paper she was editing had been providing information to the police?

The numpty

So Sharon Shoesmith was incompetent, yet Ms Brooks can claim not to have knowledge of what went on and expect us to accept that?
I know tabloids are a breeding ground for double standards, but that's absurd.

Jez

I do not think that anyone in this publication has ever brought to the fore something as powerful as the one provided by Pothead today.

http://bbc.in/kLNSYg

S.E.D, please listen to this.

Austin Barry

yeah.. and the dog ate your homework.

Colin

It will be interesting to see what falls out of this, in terms of policy, in relation to press regulation.

In time, the political expenses scandal may come to be seen as the Fourth Estate's "Road to Basra" moment. In other words, the ladies and gentlemen of the Press may rue the day they didn't put many more political crooks to the sword as a result of the large scale criminality in relation to expenses and allowances. The idea that only a handful of unloved scapegoats were thrown to the wolves, rather than the literally scores of criminals might not look so clever, this time next year.

Given what's now taking place, I guarantee that the crooks in Westminster won't make the same mistake...

I predict a move to a much more formally regulated Press in the UK. Just what many if not all in Parliament have been praying for.

Neverundersold

I genuinely believe she did not know this was going on. To go on the record with such a denial if there was any chance of someone coming forward and shopping you would be suicide. But she presided over an organisation where wholesale disregard for the law and for people's lives was so commonplace as to be sanctioned at middle-management level on a don't ask - don't tell basis. She knows this and she will go. The Sharon Shoesmith point is an apt one.

I suspect that the Dowler story and the Holly & Jessica one which is coming out today are just the tip of the non-celebrity iceberg. Killed kids, suicides, car crashes... there seems no reason to believe that this was not the default approach to opening up the human side of the story.

And judging from the comparative silence on the front pages of the other tabloids today, you might be forgiven for believing that this isn't just a NOTW story.

YouCannotBeSerious!

I give her a week at most.

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

Obviously she has never heard the expression, "The buck stops here." Never mind, she seems to have the perfect moral standards to become a politician.

Simon Stephenson.

Neverundersold : 5.05pm

"I genuinely believe she did not know this was going on. To go on the record with such a denial if there was any chance of someone coming forward and shopping you would be suicide. But she presided over an organisation where wholesale disregard for the law and for people's lives was so commonplace as to be sanctioned at middle-management level on a don't ask - don't tell basis. She knows this and she will go. The Sharon Shoesmith point is an apt one."

You may be correct, but if you are, we should ask ourselves whether or not, as a society, we are content with "don't ask, don't tell" as a standard for the lines of responsibility in managerial hierarchies. In essence, we need to decide whether the higher management levels are unable to function effectively without access to deliberately and artificially created responsibility denial, or if it closer to the truth that this creation is more to protect the individuals concerned from their own failings than to assist the businesses they manage.

Jez

YouCannotBeSerious!; "I give her a week at most."

What. Before (some may say) the underhand b*tch gets f*cked off Getmo or Devils Island? (if their's any justice and with her mates)

Baron

you should all have a cold shower, relax abit, it’s sickening, of course, if what’s alleged has happened, yet at the same time, one cannot help feeling that it somehow fits into the rottenness that has taken over at the top, and not in journalism only, more to the point, the tabloids employ pretty sharp lawyers, am almost certain that if and when the case hits the courts, it will be a few of the bottom layer foot soldiers who will carry the rap, is it even certain that hacking per se is illegal? Using the info from hacking is, is hacking in the same category? The MI5 must be doing it all the time, could the law discriminate, who decides whose hacking kosher, who’s aint?

one can still smell a rat though, why now, surely this must have been known to the police when Labour ruled, the plod cannot be that incompetent, hence the timing’s is of the utmost importance, the Left just cannot stomach Murdoch scoring one over them, not that I rank Sky News higher than the BBC's engineered output, the public monstrosity though seems to think they have as of right, should continue to have as of right monopoly here, we shall see.

alcazar

Nerverundersold, Simon Stephenson - if she was not on top of her job, knowing every detail and source of their headline stories, then she deserves to be fired because as head honcho her ignorance was exposing the NoW company to various forms of legal action. is there any sane individual who doesn't see through the charade of a statement she made. But for me the damning reaction came from an NI insider on Sky News tonight when Jeff Randall asked the NI spokesman Greenberg if he thought she was incompetent; he said no, but at simultaneious blinked and gulped - body language is a marvel! Poor lad, we all saw it!

Keri

I'm sure if she invites 'Call me Dave' over for tea and chokkie bix all will be fixed

michael

"Sick to my stomach"... You've been rumbled dear ... It's called dread.

fifer

"A big boy did it and ran away"

Vermin.

David Parker

"I hope that you all realise it is inconceivable that I knew or worse, sanctioned these appalling allegations."

This sentence simply does not ring true. Why should it not be conceivable? The very first question which most people would ask is, how high up did this knowledge go?
As someone with a great deal of experience in the newspaper trade she must have been well aware of the existence the illegal practice of journalists hacking into telephone conversations. She could possibly have been unaware of the exact details on this occasion, or maybe it was one of those times when she put her hearing trumpet to her deaf ear. But, it will need more than a pretence of outraged indignation to convince most people that she could not possibly have known.

Mr.Goose

Ms Brooks is an ambitious, clever and thoroughly ruthless woman. As many other posters have already commented, it is highly unlikely that anything of any significance occurred on her watch without her knowledge.

So why doesn't Murdoch simply throw the lovely Ms Brooks to the wolves? We're led to believe that it is because the lack of unity would mess up his BSkyB deal.

However, recent allegations regarding the activities of the the wrinkly media mogul's offspring, James Murdoch, suggest to me that there may be another reason. What if the Murdoch family itself has a far greater involvement this catalogue of evil than we have been led believe?

Put bluntly, if Rupert dumps Rebekah, then she would squeal like a stuck pig. Remember, she's smart, spiteful, has absolutely no morals at all and she was a competent journalist. Therefore, she probably has enough dirt on both Murdochs Jr and Sr to have the pair thrown in the slammer, if they were foolish enough to upset her.

Hell hath no fury and all that...