‘Brooks said it was easy to hack phones’, court told

Rebekah Brooks, former head of Rupert Murdoch’s British newspaper group, told Eimear Cook, the ex-wife of golfer Colin Montgomerie, that it was “easy” to listen to other people’s voicemails, Cook told a London court.

Brooks, who is on trial alongside seven other defendants, has pleaded not guilty to charges related to phone hacking at the News of the World when she was editor, illegal payments to officials for stories, and impeding police inquiries.

The prosecution told the jury earlier in the trial that the comments made by Brooks to Cook over lunch in 2005 showed the editor had known that phone hacking was going on under her watch. Brooks denies this.