Former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks conspired with her husband and security staff to hide material from police investigating phone hacking, a court has heard.
While the ex-News Of The World and Sun editor was being questioned by police over the voicemail allegations, her husband Charlie Brooks and former NI head of security Mark Hanna tried to hide evidence, the jury was told.
Lawyers for another of the defendants, former Downing Street director of communications Andy Coulson, also claimed he had been a victim of hacking himself.
The court heard racehorse trainer Charlie Brooks was seen leaving his London flat and entering an underground car park carrying a laptop computer and a bin bag.
The items were collected by Hanna shortly afterwards and taken away but after numerous contacts during the day, it was arranged for the computer and other material to be returned, jurors were told.
Later one of Hanna’s team, pretending he was delivering pizzas, put them back behind the bins in a black plastic bag.
The security team member then texted another colleague saying: “Broadsword calling Danny Boy. Pizza delivered and the chicken is in the pot.”
The quote is a reference to the 1968 film Where Eagles Dare starring Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton.
However, the prosecution said the plan went awry when the items were put back.
A cleaner found the material and it was handed to police.
Prosecutor Andrew Edis QC told the Old Bailey: “The prosecution say that this whole exercise was quite complicated and quite risky and liable to go wrong, as it did.
“You only contemplate doing it for a real purpose, otherwise you are just attracting suspicion.”
He added: “The only rational explanation was to hide material so police can’t get it. Sometimes plans of that kind succeed.
“They must have been trying to hide something, otherwise they would have been behaving completely irrationally.”
Rebekah Brooks is accused of two counts of perverting the course of justice – one with Hanna and her husband, and the second with her former personal assistant, Cheryl Carter.
It is claimed that she instructed Carter to remove seven boxes of notebooks – said to be Brooks’ dating from 1995 to 2007 – from the company’s archive that have “never been seen again”.
“Nothing like that has ever been recovered in the course of this inquiry,” Mr Edis told the jury.
Earlier the court was told that in 2011 the situation for News International became “more fevered” as the firm came under investigation by police after it handed over three emails linked to phone hacking and payment claims.
Jurors were also read a memo that Brooks sent to staff in July 2011, following the Guardian’s allegations that murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler’s phone was hacked.
She wrote: “We were all appalled and shocked when we heard about these allegations yesterday.
“It was sickening that these events are alleged to have happened, not just because I was editor of the News Of The World at the time …
“But if the allegations are true, the devastating effects on Milly Dowler’s family are unforgivable.
“I am determined that News International does everything it can to co-operate fully (with the police investigation).”
She added: “It is almost too horrific to believe that a professional journalist or even a freelance inquiry agent working on behalf of a member of News Of The World staff could behave in this way.
“I can promise the strongest possible action will be taken.”
Brooks is on trial alongside her one-time lover Coulson, who succeeded her as editor of the now-defunct News of the World.
His defence barrister Timothy Langdale QC urged the jury to keep “an open mind” in the trial and revealed that Coulson was himself among the phone-hacking victims.
“When it is alleged that Mr Coulson must have known (about phone hacking), if only on the basis that each of the news editors was party to hacking, you may like to bear in mind that Mr Coulson himself was hacked by (private investigator) Glenn Mulcaire,” he said.
“The CPS did not choose to tell you about that. It is not easy to reconcile with their case, is it?
“Both conspirator and victim? It is fair to say, is it not, that the two things do not sit easily together?”
Brooks, 45, of Churchill, Oxfordshire, and Coulson, 45, of Charing, Kent, deny changes that include an alleged conspiracy to hack the telephones of celebrities, royals and politicians, as well as authorising the payment of public officials for information.
The trial continues.
Hacking Trial: Brooks' Husband 'Hid Evidence'
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