The Crown Prosecution Service’s bill for taking former News of the World journalists to court over phone hacking is set to come in at close to £2m, according to figures released on Friday.
It disclosed that it has so far spent £104,852 taking the paper’s former deputy editor Neil Wallis and ex-features editor Jules Stenson to court.
Wallis was cleared by a jury and Stenson did not stand trial after pleading guilty at the first instance.
The fees are in addition to the £1.79m the CPS already disclosed it had spent on taking the paper’s editor Andy Coulson to court along with former colleagues including Rebekah Brooks, who was cleared of all charges last year.
The CPS on Friday said it spent £87,337 in staff costs on the Wallis and Stenson case with £17,515 in counsel fees paid to date. Fees from the team that prosecuted the case have yet to be received and processed.
Earlier this month Coulson, who was found guilty and was ordered to pay £150,000 in costs earlier this month while Edmondson was ordered to pay £75,000.
The Crown had initially sought £750,000 from Coulson towards the £1.7m cost of the eight-month trial and £110,000 from Edmondson, who pleaded guilty after initially pleading not guilty.
