Former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks will appear in court today to face charges linked to alleged phone hacking.

Rebekah Brooks was grilled by a House of Commons committee yesterday but the Murdoch empire has been imploding for years. It was Rupert wot done it, says David Kernek

News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks said today she was “appalled and shocked” by allegations that a private investigator working for the News of the World hacked into schoolgirl Milly Dowler’s phone after she went missing.

TORY communications chief Andy Coulson admitted yesterday that “things went badly wrong” under his editorship of the News of the World – but rejected any suggestion he knew about alleged phone-hacking by the paper’s journalists.

The publisher of the News of the World today defended its journalists and said it would not “shirk from vigorously defending our right and proper role to expose wrongdoing”.