Rebekah Brooks discussed launching an investigation into phone hacking with James Murdoch which might save her job but might look bad for Les Hinton, Rupert Murdoch's right-hand man, it was alleged at the Old Bailey on Monday.
The hacking trial heard that on 8 July, 2011, she was discussing the prospect of an internal report with James Murdoch, executive chairman of News of the World publisher News International, which would "slam Les, Colin etc" and "vindicate" her position.
Four days earlier, the Guardian had published its front-page story about Milly Dowler's phone been hacked and Brooks, then News International chief executive, was suggesting the company should announce it would launch a full investigation into what happened at the News of the World.
In an email to Rupert Murdoch's son sent at 7.16am on 8 July, she suggested they should also declare that the company's previous internal investigation was "woeful and limited".
The email, shown to the Old Bailey jury, carried on: "A thought … and a Les situation could play well into this even if it was at a later date. Ie result of report when published would slam Les, Colin [Myler, News of the World editor] etc and it will vindicate my position (or not)."
Andrew Edis, QC for the prosecution, explained that the reference to Les was to Les Hinton, the former chief executive of News International who left to run Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal in New York at the end of 2007, when James Murdoch joined the publisher from BSkyB.
She also discussed another announcement – that James would be promoting Will Lewis, a senior executive who was responsible for corporate affairs, to deputy chief executive. Brooks added: "It will be written up as a slippery slope for me but I hardly have a reputation left."
"What this shows, we suggest," said Edis, "is that on 8 July, that morning Mrs Brooks had a number of things on her mind including the police investigation, phone hacking, and payments to people. These are being mentioned."
The plan being discussed with Murdoch involved keeping her job and replacing the News of the World with a Sunday edition of the Sun. News International announced the closure of the News of the World on 7 July, with the final edition printed on 10 July.
"That's her proposal for the future and her hope is to carry on if she can," said Edis.
This was all at a time of a "media firestorm about to engulf the News of the World," said Edis. "You can imagine the extremely anxious, if not panic-stricken approach to developments that must have been going on at the News of the World and News International."
Hinton, who had worked with Murdoch for 52 years, resigned from his New York job at News International parent company News Corporation a week later.
He has spent his entire career working for Murdoch, beginning as a reporter at the Adelaide News and rising through the ranks until he was tapped to run News International in 1995, which made him responsible for the News of the World during the years when the phone hacking took place.
