Rebekah Brooks arrested in phone hacking probe!

Breaking News1:39pm UK, Sunday July 17, 2011

Brooks Arrested In Phone Hacking Probe


Rebekah Brooks has been arrested by officers investigating allegations of corruption and phone hacking, according to Sky sources.

The 43-year-old went to a London police station by appointment at midday today and is being held on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications and corruption allegations.

Operation Weeting has been launched to investigate claims that newspaper journalists hacked into the phones of high-profile figures and even victims of crime.

Mrs Brooks resigned as chief executive of News International (NI) on Friday.

She was editor of the News Of The World (NOTW) when missing schoolgirl Milly Dowler's phone was hacked and messages were deleted. The teenager was later found murdered.

Mrs Brooks is the tenth person to be arrested in connection with the NOTW scandal since detectives reopened their investigation earlier this year.

She is due to appear alongside News Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch and his son James, who is chairman of NI, before the Culture, Media and Sport committee on Tuesday.

A separate investigation, titled Operation Elveden, is looking at allegations of inappropriate payments to police.

Media commentator Mark Stephens told Sky News: "The fact that she's been arrested is not entirely surprising - I don't think it should be taken to mean there is necessarily evidence pointing to her direct knowledge of the events.

"But I imagine it is a matter of procedure really - that the inquiry is getting serious."

More to follow...

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/Rebekah-Brooks-Has-Been-Arrested-By-Police-Officers-Investigating-Phone-Hacking/Article/201107316032015?lpos=UK_News_Carousel_Region_0&lid=ARTICLE_16032015_Rebekah_Brooks_Has_Been_Arrested_By_Police_Officers_Investigating_Phone_Hacking

candyfloss wrote:
Media commentator Mark Stephens told Sky News: "The fact that she's been arrested is not entirely surprising - I don't think it should be taken to mean there is necessarily evidence pointing to her direct knowledge of the events.
"But I imagine it is a matter of procedure really - that the inquiry is getting serious."

These commentators have no idea how the police work. (Or they do and are lying - sorry Clarence, Spinning !)
If you are arrested it means that the police have evidence sufficient to deprive you of your liberty, and sufficient that a judge will subsequently decide that the arrest was justified when you try to sue for false imprisonment.
It is NOT a purely procedural matter. The police can always invite you to come to a police station for a chat, and speak to you as a potential witness.

A person on BBC news has just said that because now she is subject to a police investigation, she will probably now be unable to give evidence to the select committe. Hmmm

Michael White of the Guardian says it is a bit of news management, to take the heat off the Met Commissioner.

Tweet from Tom Watson MP who sits on the committe that RB was appearing at on Tuesday...................

tom_watson

Had she made her appointment to be arrested before confirming attendance at our committee? I wouldn't be surprised.
19 minutes ago

http://twitter.com/#!/search/tom_watson

In yesterday's paper it said she would get £3.5million severance pay.

Will she still get that if she's found guilty of corruption and phone hacking?

If so, why? Why should anyone make millions from a crime?

Kate? Gerry? Can you answer that?

Who says crime doesn't pay? Because it certainly does.

Rebekah Brooks was informed on Friday of her "appointment" with the police at midday today.

Mark Lewis (Dowler's lawyer) has been interviewed on Sky and says the timing of this arrest "stinks"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14178051

Rebekah Brooks...

1 - former NOTW editor and former Sun editor

2 - chosen as his right-hand-man by Rupert Murdoch, ran News International as its CEO until Friday

3 - close friend of the Camerons; they party together, have Christmas dinnerss together, go horse-riding together, she stays at Chequers o ntwo occasions

4 - Murdoch's daughter Elisabeth married Matthew Freud

5 - Matthew Freud appointed Clarence Mitchell to his company late 2008; Mitchell attends parties with Murdochs and top politicians at Freud's Holland Park home

6 - McCanns had dinner and drinks in late 2007 at the Algarve home of Matthew Freud's father, Clement Freud (details given by Dr Kate in her recent book)

7 - Andy Coulson resigned ONCE from NOTW through phone hacking then A SECOND TIME from David Cameron also from phone hacking, then two months later gets to spend a whole weekend at Chequers

8 - Cameron and Andy Coulson chose Clarence Mitchell as their No. 2 in their Communications Department

9 - Cameron met with NOTW executives 26 times in last 15 months

10 - 2007-2011 NOTW and Sun churn out dozens of 'exclusive' press stories all provided on a plate by Clarence Mitchell

11 - Mitchell's job until 2007 was 'to control what comes out in the media', as Head of the 40-strong Media Monitoring Unit.

So she's been 'gagged' by the Met - not that she would have said much anyway

Here are some questions the Guardian wished asked -
The questions the select committee must ask Rebekah Brooks, James and Rupert Murdoch



Those figures at News International behind the phone-hacking scandal must now come clean

• 
  
  
  
  • 
    
  • Share405
    
  • reddit this
    omnitracker.omniTrackEVarEvent( 12, 16, 'Comment is free: Reddit', 'click', '.reddit a' );
    
  
  
• Comments (39)
  

• Editorial
  
• guardian.co.uk, Saturday 16 July 2011 21.45 BST
  
• Article history
  

Questions for Rebekah Brooks


1) As editor of the Sun and NoW, did you honestly not know about phone hacking, when so many of your reporters and executives say it was openly discussed in the newsroom?
2) If not, who was checking the source or veracity of the material on which Sun and NoW stories were based? Was it the legal department? If not, why not?
3) Did you ever see any transcripts of voicemail messages?
4) In November 2002 you were personally confronted by senior Scotland Yard officers with evidence that a Metropolitan Police detective was being targeted by your newspaper acting on behalf of murder suspects. What action did you take as a result of that meeting?
5) After this meeting, you knew that private investigators with criminal backgrounds were employed by your newspaper. What did you do to or stop, or at least monitor, this?
6) In 2003, you admitted paying police officers but were interrupted in your explanation by your deputy, Andy Coulson. Would you now like to explain how many police officers your newspapers paid, when you paid them, and why?

7) On 10 July, you wrote to John Whittingdale saying that the Guardian had "deliberately misled the British public" in its report saying that News International had paid Gordon Taylor and others £1m in damages and costs over phone hacking. Why did you say that and would you like to withdraw it?
8) Why, as the CEO of a major British company, did you refuse to come and give evidence to a committee of the House of Commons? Did that not show contempt for parliamentary democracy?
9) How often did you meet (formally and socially) David Cameron in the year before he became prime minister?
10) How often have you met him (formally and socially) since?
11) Did you ever at any stage privately brief David Cameron and/or Andy Coulson on material NI reporters were gathering?
12) If so, was any of this information from illegally obtained material?
13) How often have you met (formally or informally) Dick Fedorcio, the head of press at Scotland Yard? Is it correct that you have had dinners with him?
14) How was it possible for the NoW to be employing private investigators without your knowledge? Did you not have control or sight of your own editorial budget?
15) Have you seen any evidence that Sara Payne's voicemail messages were hacked by the NoW or Sun? Did you persuade Sara Payne not to complain about this?
16) Can you give your account of the conversations that preceded your decision to publish the fact that Gordon and Sarah Brown's son, Fraser, was suffering from cystic fibrosis?
Was the source a health worker or the relative of a health worker? Was the source paid for the story?
17) Did the former prime minister, then chancellor of the exchequer, welcome having his son's medical condition revealed in your newspaper?
18) Why was it necessary to close down a profitable newspaper?
19) What did you mean when you told staff that there were worse revelations to come? What are these revelations?
20) Are you remaining on the NI payroll and continuing as an employee of the company?
Questions for James Murdoch


1) Why did you pay £1m in damages and costs to Gordon Taylor and others in 2009 and seal the evidence? Would you agree that this could be described as "hush money"?
2) On whose advice did you make this decision?
3) Why did you agree the payoff to Max Clifford? Is it right that the value of this was £1m? Is it fair to describe this as "hush money"?
4) Why didn't you make a clean breast of what was discovered in the spring of 2009 instead of covering it up?
5) You have said this decision was based on "incomplete information". What further information would have made these payments right?
6) Was evidence of criminality concealed at any time from:
The News Corp board?
The NI board?
Parliament?
Police?
The PCC?
7) Are you aware of section 79 of RIPA which can be used to prosecute any director showing "consent, connivance or neglect" of offences relating to interception of communications?
8) The Guardian story of 9 July 2009 showed that the "one rotten apple" story NI had stuck to for three years was untrue – and known by then within NI to be untrue. Why did you issue a statement denying it?
9) Did you read the full email evidence upon which the May 2007 report from Harbottle & Lewis was based? Those emails, according to the advice of a former DPP, Ken MacDonald, are believed to contain evidence of possible illegal activity by staff.
10) Why, in 2007, didn't you take the action that Will Lewis is said to have taken in 2011 in relation to the evidence upon which the Harbottle & Lewis report was based?
11) Why did it take at least four years for the significance of these emails to become evident – and why did the company sit on the evidence before handing it over to the police?
12) The Metropolitan Police's former head of counter terrorism, Peter Clarke, has said of NI's behaviour: "This is a major global organisation with access to the best legal advice deliberately trying to thwart a criminal investigation. [It offered] prevarication and what we now know to be lies." Is that a fair description of how your company behaved towards the police? Until 2011?
13) If it was right for Andy Coulson, Les Hinton and Rebekah Brooks to resign, even though they denied knowledge of what happened on their watch, why is the same not true for you?
Questions for Rupert Murdoch


1) When did you become aware of the 2009 payments authorised by your son James to buy the silence of people whose voicemails had been hacked by NI employees?
2) It is understood the value of these payments was in the region of £2m. Which News Corp executives or board members knew about them?
3) Were News Corp's audit committee, board or general counsel made aware of these payments? If not, why not? Should they have been?
4) When previously unknown evidence of criminality within your company becomes known to senior executives isn't it their responsibility to inform the police and regulators rather than try to cover it up?
5) What do you now think of your son's decision to try to conceal this evidence of criminality with secret payments rather than inform the appropriate law and regulatory authorities?
6) The Guardian's story of 9 July 2009 exposed these payments and the fact that the "lone rotten apple" theory within your company was wrong. What action did you and/or the News Corp board take as a result of this story?
7) Once it became publicly known in July 2009 that more than one reporter had been involved in illegal practices did it not concern anyone within News Corp that they had been misled?
8) Did the News Corp general counsel not read the email evidence upon which the 2007 Harbottle & Lewis report commissioned by NI was based? If he did, why did he miss the material which led to the emails being handed over to the police four years later?
9) Do you agree with the evidence of the senior police officer who told MPs last week that your company had "deliberately tried to thwart" a criminal investigation… "with prevarication and ... lies"?
10) How could a company which obstructs the police and misleads Parliament and regulators be considered a fit and proper company to run a media organisation?
11) Do you agree that the actions of your company between the beginning of 2009 and the end of 2010 could be termed a cover-up?
12) You apologised in every newspaper at the weekend. But in your own Wall Street Journal last week you said you and your fellow executives had handled the crisis "very well… with just a few minor mistakes". Is that still your view? What were those mistakes?
13) Does News Corp ever use security/corporate intelligence companies in its business dealings?
14) Have you ever personally seen or been aware of material derived from the accessing of intercepted communications?
15) In your negotiations with the Wall Street Journal shareholders did you have any access or intelligence supplied by external security companies?
16) If it was right for Andy Coulson, Les Hinton and Rebekah Brooks to resign, even though they denied knowledge of what happened on their watch, why is the same not true for you?

listener wrote:So she's been 'gagged' by the Met - not that she would have said much anyway

That's what a lot of people being interviewed are implying.

A statement released for RB says in part (didn't get it all)

RB has been offering to help since last Jan. As late as last week the police said they did not want to speak to her.

Here is the statement from RB's spokesperson...........


Mrs Brooks' spokesman said Mrs Brooks is "assisting police with their enquiries".

"Rebekah was informed about a pre-arranged interview with the police on Friday. She was arrested upon arrival at the police station today.

"Rebekah has been offering to help police with their enquiries since January. The police explicitly said they did not need to speak to her.

"As late as last week the police still maintained they did not need to speak to her.


"However following her resignation and the announcement that she would attend the Select Committee meeting on Tuesday the police changed their course of action and told Rebekah they did want to speak to her.

"The arrest puts her in a difficult position in terms of her scheduled appearance at the meeting on Tuesday. Rebekah's lawyers will be seeking guidance as to the course of action in regards to attending the meeting on Tuesday."

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/Rebekah-Brooks-Has-Been-Arrested-By-Police-Officers-Investigating-Phone-Hacking/Article/201107316032015?lpos=UK_News_Carousel_Region_0&lid=ARTICLE_16032015_Rebekah_Brooks_Has_Been_Arrested_By_Police_Officers_Investigating_Phone_Hacking

PeterMac wrote:

candyfloss wrote:
Media commentator Mark Stephens told Sky News: "The fact that she's been arrested is not entirely surprising - I don't think it should be taken to mean there is necessarily evidence pointing to her direct knowledge of the events.
"But I imagine it is a matter of procedure really - that the inquiry is getting serious."

These commentators have no idea how the police work. (Or they do and are lying - sorry Clarence, Spinning !)
If you are arrested it means that the police have evidence sufficient to deprive you of your liberty, and sufficient that a judge will subsequently decide that the arrest was justified when you try to sue for false imprisonment.
It is NOT a purely procedural matter. The police can always invite you to come to a police station for a chat, and speak to you as a potential witness.

I seriously dont understand this "arrested by appointment" thing!

If they have enough evidence to arrest her, why is she given preferential treatment to drive herself to the police station instead of taken in in the police van?

Mark Stephens is not engaging his braincells - how can it be mere procedural matter when she's arrested. He should listen to himself - implying police retained her as a procedure when she turned up for interview.

The Police must have informed her they'd evidence that she was involved and will be arrested - would she please show up for her own arrest instead of them coming to handcuff and drag her away at the crack of dawn! It's just giving her face - that's all.

I notice it seems to be the trend at the moment that a few privileged people with connections are "arrested by appointment"...Andy Coulson was also 'arrested by appointment'. hmmm.......

Quite curious what are the charges against her...bribing police or intercepting communications or both?
Would imagine as CEO her signature is on cheques to Police Officers and hackers - cant deny she didn't know surely.

Because of the close relationship or rather collusion between Met and NI (living in each other pockets) I am left wondering was she warned about her arrest hence her resignation third time and was accepted finally.
Or was the arrest coming two days before she's required to appear before the Select Committee just a tactic used by her friends in the MET to help her evade the Select Committee questioning?

Or is it a case of not allowing her to incriminate herself until they sorted her out?

I am left wondering is the timing coincidence or fishy?

Rebekah Brooks, formerly Wade, was brought up in Cheshire.

According to a BBC profile of her, issued yesterday:


"The commentator Henry Porter, who has written extensively about the power of the Murdoch press, claims little is known of Brooks personally. She's one of the most powerful people in this country...yet we have very little idea of her as a person. The sense of mystery he describes certainly applies to Rebekah Brooks' youth. We know she was at school in Cheshire but very little else about her teenage years has been published".

Brian Kennedy lives in Cheshire and is 51.

Rebekah Brooks is 43.

I didn't know til now that Rebekah was married to Ross Kemp and that she'd been arrested for attacking him, although not charged.

It seems from this article that Gerry McCann was in direct contact with Rebekah Brookes/Wade........................




McCanns launch fightback over 'nonsensical' murder claims

By Ian Herbert


Wednesday, 19 September 2007



Kate and Gerry McCann launched a robust fightback against the Portuguese police yesterday, as their advisers tore into the case against them and insisted that there are entirely innocent explanations for the reported discovery of their daughter Madeleine's DNA in their hire car.


A source close to the couple said that traces of DNA with a match to Madeleine were found in a Renault Scenic, hired 25 days after her disappearance, simply because her belongings were transferred in the boot of the car. These included her sandals which, experts have told the McCanns, would have left traces of DNA from her sweat.

Related articles
•McCanns give first interview since returning to UK
•Deborah Orr: A lazy and prejudiced approach to crime
Search the news archive for more stories
The couple will also argue that at least 30 people connected to them, including blood relatives, used the Renault Scenic before police seized it to gather forensic samples. The source said yesterday: "What people have got to ask themselves is just how many people were associated with that vehicle over a 10-week period? How many family, friends and campaign workers? How many blood relatives, how many drivers? I know of at least 30 people being associated with that vehicle in the relevant period.

"People also need to consider what was carried in that car for entirely innocent reasons. These are all areas that will provide the innocent explanations. When viewed as a whole by any rational person, these reasons at best raise fundamental questions about the reliability of any so-called evidence and at worst render it totally useless."

It is a week since Sky News broadcast a report that DNA samples with a 100 per cent match to Madeleine had been found in the boot of the Scenic. Suggestions that the match might be bodily fluids prompted a rash of speculation about decomposing bodies. But bodily fluids can include sweat or urine.

The couple's new spokesman, Clarence Mitchell, who resigned his position at the Cabinet Office's media monitoring unit to take up work for them in Leicestershire, said any suggestion the McCanns had harmed their daughter was "as ludicrous as it is nonsensical". Standing beside the couple in the driveway of their home in Rothley, Leicestershire, he said the suggestion would "be laughable if it wasn't so serious".

The McCanns' new-found public confidence stems from the team they are quietly building to counter the unsourced allegations coming out of Portugal. The couple spent Friday and Saturday in consultation with their lawyers from Kingsley Napley and by Sunday were already insisting that the scent of death picked up by sniffer dogs was a legally discredited line of inquiry. Mr Mitchell is also believed to be involved in the process of monitoring claims about them from Portugal.

Mr Mitchell was initially seconded from the Cabinet Office to assist the McCanns, but he said his re-employment, after an approach supported by the couple's legal team and financial backers, meant that continuing to work for the Civil Service was "untenable" and so he had resigned.

"I have done so because I feel so strongly that they are innocent victims of a heinous crime that I am prepared to forgo my career in government service to assist them," he said. "I wish to stress that from now on I am in no way speaking on behalf of the British Government."

Mr Mitchell said the McCanns were happy to continue their co-operation with the Portuguese authorities to establish what has happened to Madeleine. "The focus must now move away from the rampant, unfounded and inaccurate speculation of recent days, to return to the child at the very centre of this, Madeleine," he said. He also said the family wanted to stop people photographing and filming the McCanns' two-year-old twins, Sean and Amelie.

The twins did not seem to have been affected by Madeleine's disappearance, Mr Mitchell said. "They are very happy being at home. Mum and dad are constantly talking to them about Madeleine," he added. "It's not as if there's any secrecy. They are surrounded by her toys, books and pictures. They [Mr and Mrs McCann] make it clear, if they ask where she is, that she's not here at the moment."

The campaign's key figures

Gerry McCann

Mr McCann has assiduously nurtured contacts among national newspaper editors to counteract the stories emanating from Portugal. He is believed to have telephoned the News of the World's editor, Colin Myler, shortly before he was declared an arguido (suspect), to tell his side of the story, and it was a direct call by Mr McCann to Rebekah Wade last week that resulted in a Sun splash and inside headline: 'There's no proof.' By contrast, the day before the paper ran with the headline: 'Guilty or Innocent?'

Clarence Mitchell

The McCanns' communication operation was at its best when the former BBC News presenter was seconded for a month to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to replace the former Daily Mirror journalist and long-serving government spokeswoman Sheree Dodd in May. His decision to resign on Monday as head of the Government's media monitoring unit and return to the fray, replacing Justine McGuinness, has already helped the McCanns begin their fightback against innuendos in the Portuguese press. Calm and erudite, it was Mr Mitchell who briefed on Sunday that US case law might help shoot down 'evidence' that sniffer dogs had 'smelled death' in the McCanns' apartment.

John McCann

Gerry McCann's brother, a pharmaceutical sales rep, is a director and trustee of the Find Madeleine Appeal Fund, but has also been the family's calm, public face, who toured television studios on Saturday to reassert his brother and sister-in-law's innocence. His sister, Philomena, has had a higher profile, visiting the Scottish Parliament to discuss the case and speaking live to rolling news channels, but the family values John McCann's less emotional output.

Angus McBride

He, rather than his colleague Michael Caplan QC, seems to be taking a leading role in the case at Kingsley Napley, the London law firm recently appointed by the McCanns. Mr McBride toured many national newspaper offices with Justine McGuinness last week and, though he has not made any public statements, he is believed to have been behind the challenge to the sniffer dog 'evidence'. He defended the actor Chris Langham, who was recently sentenced for child pornography offences.

Carlos Pinto de Abreu

The McCanns' Portuguese lawyer is based in London and, after a brilliant academic career, is one of Portugal's most celebrated legal men, with a direct line to the country's Attorney General by virtue of their work together on human rights issues. Mr De Abreu's services have been put at £200 an hour but he is a vital source of clarity, explaining publicly last week that the McCanns' initial belief that they were offered a plea bargain was flawed

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/mccanns-launch-fightback-over-nonsensical-murder-claims-402797.html

NEWS ALERT

Met Police to give live statement on Sky News on Rebekah Brooks very shortly

candyfloss wrote:It seems from this article that Gerry McCann was in direct contact with Rebekah Brookes/Wade...

McCanns launch fightback over 'nonsensical' murder claims

By Ian Herbert - Wednesday, 19 September 2007

SNIPPED

Gerry McCann

Mr McCann has assiduously nurtured contacts among national newspaper editors to counteract the stories emanating from Portugal. He is believed to have telephoned the News of the World's editor, Colin Myler, shortly before he was declared an arguido (suspect), to tell his side of the story, and it was a direct call by Mr McCann to Rebekah Wade last week that resulted in a Sun splash and inside headline: 'There's no proof.' By contrast, the day before the paper ran with the headline: 'Guilty or Innocent?'

A good and relevant find, candyfloss, well done.

That compares with this from Dr Kate's book:

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Wednesday 12 September: Dr Kate says that this was the date they were first contacted by lawyer Edward Smethurst (COMMENT: I suspect that there is quite a lot left out of this book about the precise sequence of events relating to Edward Smethurst and Brian Kennedy).

Smethurst said he worked for Brian Kennedy, who is said to have said: “I can no longer sit idly by and watch…I want to step in and help the McCanns financially”.

A meeting was held with Brian Kennedy and Edward Smethurst at the offices of Kingsley Napley (where Michael Caplan Q.C. and Angus McBride were also based. Angus McBride drove up to Rothley to fetch the McCanns down to this meeting (!) Brian was “Much younger than I was expecting…relaxed, personable…from Edinburgh, married with five children, a self-made man who had started out as a window-cleaner...” He asked for an account of what happened on 3 May then said: “OK, that’s enough, I’ve always believed you…”

p. 269

Brian Kennedy said we must get the allegations against us out of the way and then we would be able to concentrate on finding Madeleine. Dr Kate: “I wanted to cry. Well, actually, I did cry. Here was somebody, at long last, who could see through all this rubbish and the damage it was doing”.

Dr Kate: “Discussions between ourselves, Brian and Ed, our lawyers and representatives from Control Risks continued through the afternoon”.

Let’s see who was attending those discussions:

1) Gerry McCann

2) Dr Kate

3) Brian Kennedy

4) Edward Smethurst

5) Michael Caplan QC

6) Angus McBride

7) and 8) Probably at least two staff from Control Risks Group.

A high-powered group. What did they talk about? This was Friday 14 September.

Dr Kate: “Everyone had agreed that it would be a great help to have Clarence Mitchell back on board to take care of media liaison, communications and public relations. We knew he was keen to rejoin us in spite of the government’s edict. Within three days, Clarence had resigned from the civil service and was back in the fold, his salary generously taken care of by Brian. We were absolutely delighted - as, incidentally, were the many little old ladies who wrote to tell us that they were sleeping much better since the return of that nice ‘Mr Mitchell’.”

Tony Bennett wrote:Rebekah Brooks, formerly Wade, was brought up in Cheshire.

According to a BBC profile of her, issued yesterday

Brian Kennedy lives in Cheshire and is 51.

Rebekah Brooks is 43.

Research needed here

Breaking News11:55am UK, Monday July 18, 2011

Hacking: Brooks To Face MPs Despite Arrest

Rebekah Brooks will appear before an MPs' hearing into the phone-hacking scandal on Tuesday despite her arrest, her spokesman has said.

Following her detention on Sunday, it had not been certain whether she would go to the Commons Culture Select Committee due to active criminal proceedings.

But the ex-News Of The World (NOTW) editor will now be quizzed alongside her former boss News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch and his son James over the hacking scandal centred around the paper.

However, it is still unclear to what extent former News International (NI) chief executive Mrs Brooks will be able to answer MPs' questions because of the ongoing police investigation.

Earlier, one of the committee members, Louise Mensch MP, claimed they were still anticipating her turning up.

She tweeted: "Our legal advice is we are still expecting Mrs. Brooks, and that questions will be carefully drafted not to tread on police investigation".


Meanwhile, Met Police assistant commissioner John Yates has been recalled to give evidence before the Home Affairs select committee on Tuesday, chairman Keith Vaz has announced.

Last week Mr Yates was questioned by the committee about the police's handling of the hacking crisis and his own failure to reopen the investigation when new claims of illegal activity at the NOTW emerged.

Mrs Brooks, 43, was held on suspicion of phone hacking and corruption after going to an unnamed London police station on Sunday following a request by officers on Friday.

The former NI chief executive, who resigned on Friday, was quizzed by police and then released about 12 hours after her arrest.

Her spokesman said the decision to detain her was "quite a surprise".

He said: "She had been told as early as a week ago that she wasn't on the radar, then suddenly on Friday there was a request to meet.


Lawyer Mark Lewis Comments On BRooks' Arrest
"She attended and it was quite a surprise to her on her arrival to be arrested."

Some people have questioned the timing of the arrest as she may be able to decline to answer MPs' questions, citing the ongoing police inquiry.

Mark Lewis, the lawyer for the family of Milly Dowler - the murdered teenager who allegedly had her phone hacked by the NOTW in 2002 when Mrs Brooks was editor - said the timing "stinks".

He said: "One has to ask when the appointment was made because obviously Mrs Brooks had said she was going to see the committee on Tuesday.

"Undoubtedly, she will have the option now of saying 'I'm sorry, I can't answer that because of the fact that I'm under a police investigation.

"One needs to ask the police when that appointment was made - the timing stinks.

"I think it gives the impression that certain questions can't be asked... to be arrested two days before a committee attendance... it looks deliberate."


It just makes me wonder whether this (arrest) is some ruse to avoid answering questions properly on Tuesday in the Commons committee.

Labour MP Chris Bryant
Chris Bryant, the Labour MP who led a recent Commons debate on phone hacking, told Sky News: "It is unusual to arrest by appointment on a Sunday.

"And that just makes me wonder whether this is some ruse to avoid answering questions properly on Tuesday in the Commons committee.

"I don't want to overstress that argument but it's unusual to be arrested on Sunday by appointment - why couldn't that have happened tomorrow (Monday) or Wednesday or whenever?"

However, media commentator Steve Hewlett told Sky News: "The fact that she's been arrested is not entirely surprising.

"I don't think it should be taken to mean there is necessarily evidence pointing to her direct knowledge of the events.

"But I imagine it is a matter of procedure really - that the inquiry is getting serious."


Media Commentator Steve Hewlett on arrest
Mrs Brooks spokesman went on to say: "It [the arrest] has many implications for Tuesday.

"Over the next 24 to 36 hours her lawyers will have discussions with the select committee to see if it will still be appropriate [to attend]. She certainly wants to."

Ex-NOTW political editor David Wooding has tweeted that "senior execs at NI had no idea Rebekah was about to be arrested when she quit last week".

The last ever issue of the NOTW was published on July 10 after the decision was made to close the newspaper.

James Murdoch said the tabloid had been "sullied by behaviour that was wrong".

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/Rebekah-Brooks-Lawyers-To-Meet-Culture-Committee-MPs-To-Discuss-If-She-Can-Attend-Hearing/Article/201107316032414?lpos=UK_News_Carousel_Region_0&lid=ARTICLE_16032414_Rebekah_Brooks_Lawyers_To_Meet_Culture_Committee_MPs_To_Discuss_If_She_Can_Attend_Hearing