Rebekah Brooks ‘didn’t authorise payments’

Rebekah Brooks could not be shown to have authorised payments to private investigator Glenn Mulcaire during her editorship at the News of the World, it was claimed in court.

The suggestion came as documents shown at the Old Bailey also revealed that Mulcaire had a 12-month contract with the paper, signed in Sept 2001, in which it was agreed he would receive £92,000 (€109,653) — in weekly payments.

But it was claimed that Brooks — who edited the paper from May 2000 to Jan 2003 — could not be shown to have signed payments to private investigator Mulcaire during her time as editor of the now-defunct tabloid.