Fresh Cameron-Brooks text exchanges revealed

November 04, 2012 05:32 pm | Updated November 17, 2021 04:01 am IST - LONDON

A file photo of Rebekah Brooks, the former chief of News Corp.'s British operations.

A file photo of Rebekah Brooks, the former chief of News Corp.'s British operations.

A British legislator called on Sunday for the country’s media ethics inquiry to publish all the text messages it has between Prime Minister David Cameron and Rebekah Brooks, the ex-chief executive of Rupert Murdoch’s British newspaper division, who now faces charges over the country’s tabloid phone hacking scandal.

The Mail on Sunday newspaper printed two previously unseen messages the pair had exchanged in 2009 on Sunday, prompting a call from opposition Labour Party MP Chris Bryant for Judge Brian Leveson’s ethics inquiry to disclose the texts.

Some messages sent between Mr. Cameron and Ms. Brooks have already been studied by the national panel and released to the public, provoking embarrassment for the British leader. However, other texts which the inquiry says were not relevant to its work have been kept private. Bryant claims the messages have been withheld only because they are “salacious and embarrassing.”

Mr. Cameron, a school friend of Ms. Brooks’ husband, traded text messages with the senior media figure at least once a week and offered her support after she stepped down in 2010 during the hacking scandal. The leader was also forced to acknowledge that he had occasionally gone horse riding with the couple, an image that appeared to reinforce claims by opponents that Mr. Cameron is part of a remote elite.

Mr. Bryant on Sunday urged Mr. Cameron to voluntarily release all messages he had traded with Ms. Brooks. “You can get over being embarrassed, what you can’t get over is deliberately hiding things from the British public,” the MP told BBC.

“We all recognise that that relationship between politicians as a group and newspapers and the media as a group had become too close,” Universities Minister David Willetts, a member of Mr. Cameron’s Conservative Party, said.

Mr. Cameron’s office said that the leader had met all requests made by the media ethics inquiry. “The Prime Minister has always been happy to comply with whatever Lord Justice Leveson has asked of him,” his office said in a statement, referring to the judge running the inquiry.

Giving evidence to the media inquiry in May, Ms. Brooks revealed that Mr. Cameron struggled to understand text message terminology. “Occasionally he would sign them off LOL, ‘lots of love’, until I told him it meant ‘laugh out loud’,” she told the panel.

Ms. Brooks is facing trial next year on conspiracy charges linked to Britain’s phone hacking scandal, which saw Mr. Murdoch close down The News of The World in 2010. She is also charged along with her husband and five other people with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice over allegations she tried to hide information from police investigating the scandal.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.