Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of News International, and Andy Coulson, David Cameron's former spin doctor, have lost a last ditch attempt to get their prosecution over alleged phone hacking dropped.
The court of appeal on Friday morning made the ruling after Coulson sought to have the hacking case against him removed on the grounds that the law did not extend to voicemails that had already been listened to.
The case was brought by Coulson, but the four other defendants in the Operation Weeting trial were joined in the judgment because it would affect all cases, the court of appeal ruled.
Lord Judge, the lord chief justice, and two other judges, dismissed the appeal which will affect Brooks, Coulson and three others – former News of the World news editor Ian Edmondson, former senior reporter James Weatherup and the paper's former managing editor Stuart Kuttner.
They are all due to stand trial in September for alleged phone hacking and all five pleaded not guilty to the charges earlier this month.
Lord Judge allowed the names of the Weeting defendants to be reported today on the grounds that there was no one in the country who did not know who they were.
"We must not be unrealistic. There can hardly be anyone in the country who does not know to whom this case applies."
He also refused leave to appeal to the supreme court.
Brooks and Coulson's dismissal application turned on the issue of whether phone hacking was an offence under section 1 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000.
They argued that the words used in RIPA "do not extend to cover voicemail messages once they have been accessed by the intended recipient".
In their judgment, the three judges ruled: "Contrary to the legal submission on behalf of the appellants, the resulting situation is not lacking in legal certainty".
The defendants were not in court for the judgment.
