Rebekah Brooks charged :)

[NicholasTeakozy]

Short version here I'll have a dig for more details. Oh happy day! :o

She is one of those tiresome women who are wedded to their 'lustrous' hair, you can see it now. Sat on a desk, tossing her hair in fury.

she's not a natural redhead

nancy - yes noticed the roots in her parting...

Her hair is gorgeous, i would kill for it.

Oh don't diss her based on appearance, please. It is uncool and unfair, and let's face it, there is plenty she's actually done we can diss her for.

I'm am not dissing her on her looks. I don't do that.
I am dissing her on her bloody annoying habit of wearing her hair like a bad habit.
I have already admitted its beautiful etc.
It's still fecking annoying.
My annoyance is not connected to her gender.

She looks like Mick Hucknall. Come to think of it, has anyone ever seen them in the same place?

She seems overall to be a very annoying woman. I don't suppose I'm the only one who feels like this. Certainly her appearance is the least of it. It's her unbearably smug superior attitude not the red hair that is so objectionable.

I somehow get the impression that MN is watching this thread with interest.Me thinks R may have upset Justine or MN in some way

I have said before that I was surprised she was charged and so was she by the sound of it. However, I'm glad it wasn't swept under the carpet. Surely if this kind of thing is just allowed to go on and on where will it all end. It's not going to disappear and can only get worse. Do we want to live in a country whose Government has to answer to a newspaper. I don't. Corruption if and where it exists surely has to be dealt with.

I think Governments always somewhat answer to newspapers, bankers and other countries that have more power.[think the new french president immediately running off to see the German president].The majority of people think that the Government is the highest authority in the land, but it isnt really.

she ties it back when she wants to go incognito - I read something along those lines somewhere

true enough that when you have a feature like that you can hide quite well if you remove it from sight

she could wear a false beard I spose...

anagram I said upthread I'm as fond of a conspiracy theory as the next woman. But actually, I'm not.

Are you seriously suggesting judge and jury-rigging on an industrial scale like happens in some countries? Disappointed as I am in our leaders I'm not sure they would dare.

I think some of us have been watching too many films.

The NI people who've been charged, and those that have been arrested and may face serious charges, are in deep shit. People in deep shit shed friends like leprosy sufferers.

They will have been selling or re-mortgaging their assets to fund their defence. Andy Coulson is in the High Court arguing that NI pays his costs because if he has to pay, it will ruin his family whether he is innocent or not.

One day they will all face a jury who will decide on their guilt or innocence and that's how it should be.

A jury believed Harry Redknapp didn't fiddle his taxes. However, Harry Redknapp is wildly popular.

He never ordered his underlings to hack a dead girl's phone. Allegedly.

I agree with anagram I am enjoying seeing her squirm but deep down she just j=knows too much about too many

I may have got this wrong because I have only a basic understanding of the facts and my attention was caught by the Milly Dowler case,
but would all this have come to pass if the Milly's parents had not so doggedly pushed for someone to be held to account?

I know it must be more complex that that but were they the proverbial straw?

I think they were, MrsDeV

One of the allegations was that they had listened to voicemail messages on Milly's phone, & that had removed them from voicemail, & led her parents to believe she was still alive & using her phone, & gave them false hope

I think they actually just fell out of her voicemail over time (???) But yes, it was the fact that NI hacked into it at all that really kicked things off at last.

\link{http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18002180\2 messages actually disappeared but there's no evidence that NI people (or anybody else) deleted them deliberately}

The revelation about Milly Dowler's phone, in the Guardian, was the moment when the story got too big for the Murdochs and their mates in government and the Met police to ignore it any longer. It was the result of dogged persistence by the Guardian and a few others in the teeth of repeated denial and obstruction from News International, the police and government - and the Press Complaints Commission, whose then chair publicly rubbished the series of stories the Guardian had written exposing the whole sorry affair.

Unfortunately the Guardian had to back down on the allegation that tabloid journos had deleted Milly's messages, which slightly took the shine off the story. They should have run it as an allegation that was believed by some involved in the investigation, not a proven fact. (It seems it can never been known one way or another, but is likely messages were deleted automatically by her phone company after X number of days.) But still, the whole campaign is a real feat of investigative journalism in the teeth of incredibly powerful opposition.

very true, edam

so pleased that they kept plugging away despite the knockbacks

mrsdevere

It's the hypocrisy of the news-consuming public fed and led by newspapers.

Milly Dowler was the tipping point. Up till July last year, when it was revealed that her phone was hacked, this was only the concern of nerds like me.

After that there was an unstoppable head of steam that began with the closure of the News of the World and will continue we know not where and how high.

Before then people didn't care that the privacy of people such as Sienna Miller was invaded. In fact many people rejoiced in it because the papers were busybusybusy making them feel justified by trashing her and her ilk as money-grabbing fame-whores who were lying and wanted to traduce the noble organs of the people.

Meanwhile they were also busybusybusy talking about what a waste of police resources it was investigating this when there was terrorism and whatnot to be looked into by Yates Of The Yard and that fucking clown Andy Hayman. Both of whom were on the NI payroll, amongst others.

And then there were the Met officers involved in the collapsed trial of a man allegedly murdered by someone who was an informant to NI.

Why do we think the papers that muddied the water might have done that?

There is a trade-off between fame, promotion and news and many people cross that line, if they even know where it is. In those cases I have no sympathy.

But why do people believe that Sienna Miller shouldn't be able to have a chat with her mum about anything from thrush to abortion without seeing it as the News of the World's next splash?

Not that I've any idea that Sienna Miller has ever had thrush or an abortion. But does she deserve less sympathy because she's rich and pretty and skinny?

Yet after the revelations about Milly Dowler people were outraged. That depresses me because there shouldn't be a sliding scale of people who are worthy of privacy.

People are fucking hypocrites and they are all as guilty as the reporters who write the newspapers they read. And that goes for the idiots who claim not to read newspapers but are impressively ahead of me on celeb gossip.

I'm not going to say much about the solicitor for Milly Dowler's parents because they are getting a form of justice that they wouldn't get if not for his perspicacity.

But he's doing great. And so the world turns.

Leveson had to make a statement a while ago insisting that the Dowler case was NOT the sole reason for the inquiry.

I guess he had to do that given that the thing that so outraged people - the alleged removal of voicemail messages from Milly's phone - was not true.

I agree limited. I am not a consumer of the sleb mags and havent bought the News of the World since they started printing negative letters about Stephen Lawrence. Once I boycott, I boycott.

I am not so bothered about the media/sleb game playing because I ignore it but
I do not think phone hacking, bin dipping, email hacking or stalking is acceptable even if we are talking about media tarts like KP and PA.

I will admit that I really sat up and took notice when the stuff about Milly came out. It hit me hard. I had been following the Belfield trial closely and then the NI stuff began to come out. I was outraged at the idea that anyone would tamper with her phone.
This was a personal reaction because I lost a teenage daughter. I was insensed in a way that suprised me.

I cannot imagine the strength it has taken for Milly's parents to go through that vile trial and all the much the defence rake up and then to carry on with their case against the might NI machine.
I think they are heroic. In the same way I think Stephen Lawrence's parents are heroic for never giving up.

Its hard to get out of bed most days, let alone go through all they have.

I know the issue goes deeper and there is a great deal more to it (thanks for explaining things in such a clear way) but Milly's parents stick in my mind as astoundingly brave.

Nancy - they did listen to Milly's phone while people were frantically searching for her. They ran a story based on her messages. The only bit that is in doubt is whether they deleted messages, and apparently that can never be established one way or the other.

Yes, it was the idea that they had deleted messages and given her parents false hope she was alive that turned the tide. But intercepting her messages was bad enough, God knows.

Btw, let's not forget the CPS were involved in the cover-up. The head of the CPS pronounced that it wasn't illegal to listen to someone else's messages unless that person hadn't heard them first. A bizarre attempt at obfuscating because obviously it would be impossible to prove whether someone had listened to their own voicemail or not. Completely ignoble and shameful ploy by the CPS to wriggle out of their responsibility to investigate allegations of criminal behaviour by News International. Let's hope this new prosecutor is more on the ball.

yes, they listened to voicemails - did they run a story based on the messages? Maybe. Doesn't sound familiar to me though.