Rebekah Brooks should have been asked to authorise Glenn Mulcaire's first deal with the News of the World for £92,000 but she was never shown his contract, the Old Bailey has heard.
The former News of the World editor told the phone-hacking trial she had not been shown the contract signed in September 2001 between Mulcaire's company Euro Research and Information and Greg Miskiw, the paper's then assistant editor (news and investigations), even though it exceeded the amount she could authorise on her own.
Both Mulcaire and Miskiw have already pleaded guilty to conspiracy to hack phones, a charge also faced by Brooks, who denies the charge.
Brooks was also quizzed about a payment to Glenn Mulcaire in relation to the killers of Jamie Bulger who were released on lifelong licence, with new identities in 2001.
Asked if she was aware if Mulcaire had provided information in relation to the killers, she responded: "I never heard the name Glenn Mulcaire, so I suppose the answer is no." She said "when taking to Greg" about the story, "he might have said 'from one of my great contacts'".
The jury heard last week Mulcaire was paid £7,500 in relation to the Bulger killers Jon Venables and Robert Thompson.
Brooks said the contract, which was for weekly payments of £1,769 a week for 12 months, should have been drawn to her attention and that of the paper's then managing editor Stuart Kuttner because of the total annual payment and should also have been referred up to the paper's managing director, Clive Milner.
"It should have been authorised by me and Stuart Kuttner. I think [my spending limit] was about £50,000 at the time," she told the court. A payment of that size would also have to be referred up to the managing director, Clive Milner, she said. "It should have had higher authority."
"If the department head at the time was paying these weekly payments to their own sources and contacts, as long as they were keeping within their weekly spending budget, my visibility would have been pretty low."
Asked by her counsel Jonathan Laidlaw QC whether she had ever seen the contract, she responded: "No, I didn't."
Asked if her attention was ever drawn to the contract, she replied: "Not at the time, not during my editorship."
Brooks was then asked about whether she had heard of the company Euro Research and Information.
"Their name didn't ring a bell with me when I heard about it in 2006," she said. "Of course we used a lot of private detectives on the paper so it would not necessarily ring a bell."
She added: "The use of research agents, private detectives at that period of time in Fleet Street was pretty normal."
The court heard that in November 2001 – two months after the contract with Mulcaire was signed – Miskiw was given a £1,000 bonus for keeping within his budget in the first quarter of the financial year.
Asked if there was any reason to examine his spending in detail, Brooks replied "No."
Kuttner has denied a charge that he conspired to hack phones.
The trial continues.
