UK: Rebekah Brooks to be charged over phone hacking (UPDATE)

Rebekah Brooks, the former News International chief executive, will face charges of trying to cover up the tabloid phone-hacking scandal.

Brooks, 43, faces three charges for perverting the course of justice, Alison Levitt, the principal legal advisor to Britain's Director of Public Prosecutions, said in a statement in London today, according to Bloomberg.

In the first charges to be filed since police launched a new inquiry into phone hacking in January 2011, Brooks' racehorse trainer husband, Charlie, will face similar charges.

Meanwhile, Brooks's former PA Cheryl Carter, the company's head of security Mark Hanna, News International chauffeur Paul Edwards and security consultant Daryl Jorslin also face allegations of obstruction of justice.

"All these matters relate to the ongoing police investigation into allegations of phone hacking and corruption of public officials in relation to the News of the World and The Sun newspapers," Levitt said, according to ninemsn.com.au.

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According to the Murdoch press in Australia, Brooks is facing three charges, including concealing and removing material, and concealing documents and electronic equipment in July 2011.

Rebekah Brooks has lashed out at the allegations, which the Sydney Morning Herald's London correspondants say she has described as "a witch hunt."

Speaking to journalists as she emerged from her lawyer's office with her husband, The Daily Telegraph quotes Brooks as saying: "I am baffled by the decision to charge me today." She added that she was angry that her family had been dragged into the investigation.

"One day the details of this case will emerge and people will see today as nothing more than an expensive sideshow, a waste of public money as a result of an unjust and weak decision," she said.

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