Phone hacking scandal deepens

[David Guyatt]

UK phone-hacking trial: Rebekah Brooks's assistant 'offered Australia move for hiding News International boxes'

By Europe correspondent Barbara Miller, wires
Updated 3 hours 40 minutes ago
Photo: Cheryl Carter worked as Rebekah Brooks's personal assistant for 16 years. (AFP: Will Oliver, file photo)
Related Story: Brooks 'hatched plot' to cover up phone hacking, court hears
Map: England

The UK trial into alleged phone hacking at the now defunct News of the World (NotW) newspaper has heard allegations an employee was offered a move to Australia as a reward for concealing evidence.
Cheryl Carter, a former personal assistant to then-NotW editor Rebekah Brooks, faced accusations she was to be rewarded for removing boxes of Ms Brooks's notes shortly before the paper was shut down, the Old Bailey in London heard.
Carter's lawyer told the court that police suggested to his client that she was promised a job at a Murdoch-owned paper in Australia in return.
But her son told the court that the family had planned to move to Australia long before the phone-hacking scandal erupted, and had had visas from 2007.
They went ahead with the move in early 2012, but had to abandon the project after Carter was arrested.
In a recorded interview with police, played to the jury, Carter told officers she took boxes from News International's archives at the height of the scandal because it was convenient, and not to hide them.
She said archivists asked her to remove seven boxes marked as notebooks belonging to Brooks months earlier, but she decided to get them when Brooks was on holiday on July 8, 2011.
This was the day after it was announced that the Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid was to be shut down amid anger at allegations its staff had been involved in phone hacking.
Carter and Brooks, the former boss of Mr Murdoch's British newspaper arm News International, are charged with perverting the course of justice.
Brooks is also accused of conspiracy to hack phones and authorising illegal payments to public officials, charges she denies.
Boxes were removed 'as archive was downsizing'

Andy Coulson, a former NotW editor, and four others are also on trial over similar accusations, which they deny.
Jurors heard that Carter had asked the company's archivist, Nick Mays, to get the boxes from storage on July 8.
The boxes, placed in the archive in 2009, were marked as containing Brooks's notebooks from 1995 to 2007, during which time she had been editor of both the NotW and Murdoch's daily Sun tabloid.
Carter told police Mr May asked her to remove material from the archive because it was downsizing.
She said she had decided to deal with the boxes that week in July because Brooks was on a "boot camp" holiday, where she would be at home with a personal trainer.
Carter, who worked as Brooks's assistant for 16 years, arranged for her son Nick and Brooks's driver to help take the boxes from the archives. Her son then took them back to Brooks's house.
She said the seven boxes mainly contained Brooks's belongings. There were just three notebooks, a diary, and photographs belonging to Brooks, which she said she returned to the company's offices.
"I threw away the rest of the stuff," she said.
In the interview detectives read out a statement from Mr Mays in which he said he had not asked Carter to remove any material from the archive.
The trial continues.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-01-08/re...ns/5189732

If the reason for removing the 7 boxes of notebooks was to downsize the archive, then it's a pretty desultory method of achieving that aim. Seven boxes in the scheme of things is simply a mote of dust compared to what the archive must have contained. Ergo, it's a ridiculous assertion.

The sense I get from following this trial is that the prosecuting silks aren't doing a very commendable job on the accused. Perhaps that's their brief?