Rebekah Brooks has revealed that she was "confiding" emotionally in Andy Coulson when a story appeared in the News of the World mentioning Milly Dowler's voice messages in April 2002, jurors at the Old Bailey have heard.
Brooks, the former editor of the paper, was holidaying with her then husband Ross Kemp in Dubai at the time but had kept in touch with the paper which was being edited by Coulson, who was her deputy at the time.
In cross-examination at the phone hacking trial on Thursday, Brooks again denied that a love letter found by police on her computer meant she had had a six-year affair with Coulson.
Jurors have already heard that said Brooks had first got together with Coulson in 1998 and had several periods of "physical intimacy" with him after that.
Brooks had not been "waiting around like Miss Havisham," she told the jury, for Coulson and had got on with her life over those years up to 2004 when she wrote the letter.
On Thursday she was asked whether in April 2002 she was back talking to Coulson "in that confidential way". Barely audible to the court, Brooks responded: "Yes."
Prosecutor Andrew Edis QC asked: "Was the relationship in April 2002 such that Mr Coulson could completely trust you with any confidence at all?" Brooks replied: "Yes."
Edis asked her to also think about her relationship with Coulson in August 2004. The jury has already heard that this was when the then home secretary David Blunkett's voicemails were hacked and Coulson, by then editor of the News of the World, travelled to Sheffield to confront him about the affair.
At the time Brooks was editor of the Sun, which followed up the News of the World's exclusive about Blunkett by revealing that the identity of the woman with whom he was involved was Kimberly Quinn.
Edis asked Brooks: "By August 2004 – were you back talking to each other confidentially again?
Brooks responded: "We were certainly talking again."
Edis continued: "Were you talking to each other in that confidential way again by that stage?"
She replied: "Certainly – would have been back to confiding on an emotional level by that stage, yes."
Referring to the draft letter she wrote to Coulson in February 2004, she said it was wrong to conclude that they had been involved in a six-year affair.
Jurors have already seen the entire letter but reporting restrictions have been placed on large sections for privacy purposes.
For the first time, the public, press and Brooks's co-defendants in the dock including Coulson heard one new line from the letter, when Edis asked Brooks: "Can I ask you to consider this sentence also: 'For six years I've waited'. There would be no reason would there for you to lie on this letter at all?"
Brooks replied: "No."
Edis continued his line of questioning, telling the court he would keep it brief but he needed to establish the facts around the relationship, because of the inference in his opening statement that she could have known about the hacking of Dowler's phone because she had said in the letter she confided in him, trusted him with everything and considered him her best friend.
"What I suggested to the jury was the letter meant that you had had an affair for six years," said Edis.
Brooks said: "That's not true." Edis responded: "Is there anything you'd like to say about why that [is the case]?"
She replied: "We didn't have an affair for six years and if it was true I would say. Police found [the letter] on the computer and served it as evidence, there is no reason for me to say it's not true."
She said the line in the letter saying she had been "waiting for six years" was just something she felt at that moment.
"It was the emotion of the moment. In that time I had got back together with Ross, had got married, bought a house together, tried to have a baby, and the relationship [with Ross] had gone wrong. Andy Coulson had got on with his life … .
"I am clearly saying that it's been six years since we first got together and in my heart, I felt that.
"I hadn't been sitting there like Miss Haversham … I just didn't have a relationship with Andy for six years … If we had an affair for six years I would have said so."
Brooks and Coulson both deny the charge that they conspired to intercept phone messages.
Edis put it to Brooks that although the News of the World and the Sun are owned by the same company, "they were actually in competition with each other to a great extent". Brooks agreed, saying there was "a long tradition of this".
He asked whether during her periods of closeness with Coulson if that changed and if they had co-operated more, or shared work secrets.
Brooks replied: "There must have been times when we did co-operate maybe in the way you suggest other editors haven't, but it was the exception rather than the rule and intimacy made it very difficult, work wise."
The trial continues.
