Guardian News and Media/London
Rebekah Brooks’s husband may have been “foolish” or “stupid” but he is not a criminal, the jury in the phone-hacking trial has been told.
Charlie Brooks was not trying to pervert the course of justice as it is alleged, when he hid material including computers and his pornography collection behind a bin at their home in Chelsea on the day of her arrest in July 2011, the jury was told.
His counsel Neil Saunders said that Brooks accepts his actions were “unwise” but he hid the material to save himself embarrassment and to prevent the police getting hold of the only manuscript of a new novel he was writing.
This was not a crime as none of the material could have been evidence of interest to the investigation of his wife, Saunders said.
Saunders told jurors that in order for the prosecution to prove its case against him, “you must be sure there is some additional missing property that has never been recovered”.
He told the jury that it also had “to be sure it’s the direct responsibility of Charlie Brooks” and that the material “contains something relevant to the police investigation into hacking or some sort of cover-up relating to the allegations”.
Saunders attacked the prosecution’s case as “theory-driven and not evidence-led”.
He told jurors that Brooks made an “impulsive decision” to remove his own property from the flat in Chelsea Harbour while his wife was being detained at Lewisham police station on July 17, 2011.
Among the items taken downstairs to the underground car park were a pornographic magazine, pornographic DVDs in a Jiffy bag and a Sony Vaio laptop that held his manuscript. Brooks was also worried that if the police found his pornography the story would make its way into the media, the jury was told.
“His instinctive reaction was the police could easily leak this material to the press” because of the number of leaks about hacking arrests to the Guardian by a police officer, Sunders said.
Brooks has been charged with conspiring with others to pervert the course of justice by concealing material from the police.
“The prosecution theory is of a fairly complicated and carefully planned military-style operation involving many people embroiled in a web of deceit,” he said. “The defence suggest you use your common sense and you will conclude this was not a clever plan but a man under pressure who made a foolish decision to hide his property,” he added.
He told jurors that for the prosecution case to be proved they had to be sure that there was some additional property hidden that was never recovered and that it contained something “relevant to the police investigation to hacking or some sort of cover-up relating to allegations.”