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Rebekah Brooks spoke at Chequers party of phone hack methods, trial told

Cameron friend claims Brooks said hacking voicemail was rife after mobiles became popular in 90s, Old Bailey hears

Rebekah Brooks discussed phone hacking at David Cameron's birthday party at Chequers in October 2010, describing the technique for accessing other people's voicemail and suggesting that it was being done by journalists, an Old Bailey court heard .

Dom Loehnis, who was described as a close friend of Cameron's, told the jury in the phone-hacking trial that he had been seated next to Brooks at the dinner party, and that she had described publicity around the affair as a story that could not easily be "closed down", adding that she did not think that Andy Coulson could survive as the prime minister's director of communications. Coulson resigned three months later, in January 2011.

Loehnis said there were about 60 guests at the party, seated at tables of six to eight people. His role was to deliver a speech for Cameron in the form of a poem. Asked if it was a party to celebrate the election victory in May 2010, he said: "It was a big party. The pretext was the birthday, but it was a celebration of all sorts of things."

He said he had begun the conversation with Brooks by asking whether she thought Coulson – who was not at the dinner – could survive the press speculation about him. "She said that she wasn't sure that he could survive," he continued. "She said that she felt the story wouldn't go away and the reason for that was that, at a certain point in time, people had discovered that you could get into mobile phone voicemail by tapping in a default code."

She had told him that so many people knew how to do it that "it wasn't a story that could easily be closed down". He added that she had made it clear that she was talking "in the context of journalists" and that he understood her to mean that the hacking had been happening since the late 1990s, when the use of mobile phones had become widespread. "The impression I took was that it started out as something you discovered you can do. You do it almost because you can."

He continued: "What she said, as far as I can remember, was that there was one default code and nobody changed it, and essentially if you rang somebody's voicemail and were asked for the code, some people put that code in and discovered they got voicemail."

Loehnis said he had met Brooks before this dinner and had later written to her when she resigned as chief executive of News International in July 2011. "The main import of the letter was to say 'I'm sorry that this has happened to you and hope that you come out of it well'."

Cross-examined by Jonathan Laidlaw QC for Brooks, Loehnis agreed that she had not said anything to indicate or even to hint that she had any knowledge of phone-hacking when she was editing the News of the World, or that she had ever been involved in commissioning phone-hacking.

Separately the court heard that following the arrest in August 2006 of the paper's royal editor, Clive Goodman, who was charged with hacking the voicemail of three members of the royal household, the in-house lawyer, Tom Crone, on 15 September, had emailed Coulson with information which, he wrote, had been provided by police to Brooks, then editing the Sun.

Referring to the paper's specialist hacker, Glenn Mulcaire, who had also been arrested, Crone reported: "The raids on his properties produced numerous voice recordings and verbatim notes of his accesses to voicemails. From these, they have a list of 100-110 'victims' … The recordings and notes demonstrate a pattern of 'victims' being focused on for a given period and then being replaced by the next one who becomes flavour of the week."

Seven weeks later, on 3 November 2006, the court heard, Coulson arranged for Goodman's solicitor, Henri Brandman, to provide 2,000 pages of police paperwork which had been served on Goodman by the prosecution. On Monday, the jury heard the tape-recording of a phone call, dated five days later, on 8 November, when Goodman told his editor of the "quite massive" case which the police had assembled against Mulcaire.

Rebekah Brooks, Andy Coulson, Stuart Kuttner and Ian Edmondson deny conspiring to intercept voicemail. The trial continues.

Nick Davies
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Andy Coulson 'was warned of police hacking suspicions seven years ago'

Court hears recorded phone call in which Clive Goodman told former NoW editor of 'quite massive' case against Glenn Mulcaire

Andy Coulson was warned seven years ago that the police had a "quite massive" case against the News of the World's specialist phone-hacker, Glenn Mulcaire, according to a phone call taped by one of his reporters that was played at the Old Bailey on Monday.

The paper's royal editor, Clive Goodman, also told Coulson in the recorded conversation that police had found "voicemail and Pin numbers" at Mulcaire's address in 2006, and that there were "danger points" for the newspaper in documents obtained by the police at that time.

Goodman warned his editor that Mulcaire was being "very difficult" and "rapidly emerging as something of a nutter". Referring to the hacker and his lawyers, Goodman said at one point: "You've got to worry, haven't you, really to wonder whether they're keeping shtum."

The jury in the phone-hacking trial was told that Goodman secretly taped the phone call with his editor in November 2006 after he had been arrested by police – but before the reporter went to court to admit intercepting the voicemails of messages left for aides to Princes William and Harry.

During the conversation, Coulson – who was listening to the recording in the dock – repeatedly assured the royal editor that he intended to continue to employ him. "You have it from me that, you know, I absolutely see a future for you here," he said. But the jury has been told that after Goodman was jailed in January 2007 he was immediately sacked.

In the call Goodman said: "The case against Glenn [Mulcaire] is quite massive really. All sorts of stuff they picked up in his place, as I told you, the other names, PIN numbers of people and my concern is I don't somehow become associated, I don't somehow get binned off as the, you know, instrument."

Goodman warned Coulson that there was "a real nasty sting in the tail" in the News of the World's phone-billing system which, unlike some switchboards, recorded every number that was called. Later, he asked his editor if he was aware of "danger points" in the documentation held by police.

Following an exchange, Coulson then said: "You know, there's been all sorts of names and all sorts of allegations. It comes down to what they think they can prove. And indeed what the truth is. Those names mean absolutely nothing to me. From what I understand, they're not tracing those names back to the paper … there's no direct link to the News of the World."

"No," replied Goodman. "They've found the voicemails and the PIN numbers at Mulcaire's address."

Goodman said the police had found a contract with Mulcaire, linking the paper's northern editor, Greg Miskiw, to a story about somebody who was claiming they had been hacked but there was no forensic evidence to prove it. "It's an assumption," he said, "but given what Mulcaire does …" "Sure," said Coulson.

"People might think it's fairly solid," Goodman continued.

Goodman went on to explain that Greg Miskiw was in contact with Mulcaire: "I think he's just telling Glenn not to be an idiot as much as he can. You know, without getting too deeply involved himself, coz clearly he doesn't want that can of worms opened."

Coulson replied: "Yeah, quite difficult."

Separately, Colin Montgomerie's former wife, Eimear Cook, was accused of lying to the jury after claiming that Rebekah Brooks had discussed phone-hacking with her at a lunch in September 2005. Cook said Brooks had also talked about an incident when police had been called to deal with her allegedly assaulting her then partner, Ross Kemp – an incident which, the court was told, did not happen until November, six weeks after the agreed date of the lunch.

Answering questions from the prosecution, Cook said she remembered that Brooks described how easy it was to listen to another person's voicemail if they failed to change the factory-set PIN code and that she had also described how newspapers, including the Sun which she herself was editing, had reported the police being called to deal with her argument with Kemp and how she had had to explain it to Rupert Murdoch.

. But Jonathan Laidlaw QC, for Rebekah Brooks, told her: "This never happened … not only did it not happen. It could not have happened." The jury was shown Mrs Brooks' desk diary which showed that the lunch had taken place on September 20 2005. The Crown had earlier agreed that this was the date. The jury was then shown newspaper reports of the police dealing with her alleged assault on Ross Kemp, which had not occured until November. Cook replied: "I didn't make it up. I have no grievance against Mrs Brooks personally whatsoever. I didn't make it up. Something was said to that effect."

Brooks, Coulson, Stuart Kuttner and Ian Edmondson deny conspiring to intercept communications. Coulson and Goodman also deny conspiring to commit misconduct in public office. The trial continues.

Nick Davies
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News International executive claimed Labour MP attempted 'a hit' on Brooks

Phone-hacking jury shown internal company emails as court hears Charlie Brooks sought reassurance his wife was 'OK'

A senior News International executive accused Labour MPs who were exposing the phone-hacking scandal of "making stuff up" and of attempting "a hit" on the company's chief executive, Rebekah Brooks, according to an internal email disclosed in court on Thursday.

The jury in the phone-hacking trial heard that Will Lewis, NI's then general manager, acted to reassure Brooks's husband Charlie after she had been criticised by a Labour MP in March 2011. Former minister Chris Bryant had claimed that the hacking had started at the News of the World under Brooks's editorship and that eight MPs had been warned by police that they may have been targeted.

After the politician's intervention, Charlie Brooks emailed Lewis, asking: "Is Rebekah OK? Bryant seems pretty aggressive."

Lewis replied that she was OK but jet-lagged after a foreign trip to work with Rupert Murdoch. He continued: "Generally, Bryant is clearly making stuff up. There is a concerted effort by him and some other MPs and Panorama this Monday to push the start of the saga back before 2005 in order to target Rebekah. We will not let that happen." He added that the BBC TV programme had "already been hit by two legal letters".

In July 2011, when the Labour MP Tom Watson raised the hacking of Milly Dowler's phone on a point of order in the House of Commons, Charlie Brooks was sent an email summary of Watson's comments and then emailed Lewis: "Is the below a problem for Rebekah?"

Lewis replied: "Another attempted hit on Rebekah by Watson. Far from ideal." He added that they were "on the back foot" because they did not have access to paperwork belonging to the NoW's specialist hacker, Glenn Mulcaire, which had been seized by police and was being released to public figures who were suing the paper.

Earlier the jury was shown an email in which the newspaper's royal editor, Clive Goodman, pressed the managing editor's office to pay cash to three particularly sensitive sources, including an unidentified executive from another newspaper.

In the message, dated 1 July 2005, he wrote: "Two are in uniform and we – them, you, me, the editor – would all end up in jail if anyone traced their payments. They have had Special Branch crawling all over them … The third is an executive at another newspaper who is also taking a life-altering risk for us and will not accept any other form of payment."

In a separate email, dated 24 January 2006, Goodman chased payment for a source who, the jury have been told, was a police officer whose identity was concealed by a false name: "I'm afraid Mr Farish is a cash-only contributor because of his extremely sensitive job. Curtains for him and us …"

Another internal message disclosed that public figures who were hired by the newspaper as columnists were being paid up to £182,000 a year. A former England football manager was being paid £13,333 a month for his column. An England cricketer was receiving £8,000.

Rebekah Brooks, Andy Coulson, Stuart Kuttner and Ian Edmondson deny conspiring to intercept communications.

The trial continues.

Nick Davies
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Phone-hacking trial told of secrecy at News of the World

Executive PA describes how reporters from investigative unit would leave the room or go to roof to hold conversations

The strangely secretive life of the News of the World was exposed as the jury in the phone hacking trial heard of reporters meeting on the roof to avoid being overheard, of false payment records and false names, and of emails hinting at the use of "dark arts".

Through it all the Old Bailey jury heard about the particularly private life of the paper's specialist phone hacker, Glenn Mulcaire, also known, the court has been told, as David Alexander, Paul Williams, John Jenkins, Mr Strawberry and Mr Lemon.

In statements read to the court, a former district reporter, Dominic Herbert, said the paper was shy about the provenance of its diet of sensational exclusives: "You didn't ask the newsdesk questions and generally didn't talk to colleagues about stories before their publication."

An executive PA, Amanda Burgess, added there was "a great deal of secrecy at the News of the World", describing how reporters from the investigative unit would leave the room or go on to the roof to hold conversations.

Paul Kennedy, a reporter formerly based in Manchester, described his boss, assistant editor Greg Miskiw, as "a very private person and extremely secretive. He would often leave the office to take phone calls or whisper into his phone He would take phone calls while smoking a cigarette."

Nevertheless, Kennedy told police, he knew that Miskiw had "a source called Glenn". He told the court he had met him once, at a leaving party in London, and had no doubt now that this was Glenn Mulcaire. Indeed, he claimed, this was a secret that was well known. "It was widely known in the office that Glenn was supplying Greg with good information."

The court has been told that two former editors, Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson, did not hear Mulcaire's name while they worked at the News of the World.

James Morgan, who handled payments to contributors for the newsdesk, said he understood that Mulcaire was "Greg's man" and that it was Miskiw who had told him to set up regular weekly payments for him. In drawing up payment records, Morgan agreed, he had been told to "pick any agenda", attributing to Mulcaire any topical story even if he had not worked on it.

The tabloid's former newsdesk secretary, Frances Carman, was asked if she remembered a long-running office joke about "somebody who was slightly strange, a Walter Mitty character" who would call the newsdesk introducing himself as Mr Strawberry or Mr Lemon. "It does ring a bell," she replied.

The court was shown payment slips which sent cash to Mulcaire under the name of David Alexander, and emails which he sent using the name Paul Williams. The crown has also played an audio tape allegedly of Mulcaire "blagging" a phone company, using the false name John Jenkins.

The jury was also shown two email exchanges between the news editor, Ian Edmondson, and the royal editor, Clive Goodman. In one, Goodman asked if Edmondson had any information from the police. An apparantly confused Edmondson replied with a single question mark. Goodman then wrote: "Apols – cross purposes. Thought you were spinning some dark arts on this."

In another exchange, Edmondson asked Goodman if he had any confirmation of a royal story the reporter was working on. The newspaper's then royal editor replied: "The tale comes from William himself."

Responding, Edmondson wrote: "?" to which Goodman replied: "Not on email."

Rebekah Brooks, Andy Coulson, Stuart Kuttner and Ian Edmondson deny conspiring to intercept communications. The trial continues.

Nick Davies
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News of the World paid well-placed royal source, phone-hacking trial told

Old Bailey also hears about kiss-and-tell sources, a Heather Mills tape recording and 'spoof' first editions

The News of the World had a source who was "well placed in royal circles" who was paid in cash for providing information, the jury in the phone-hacking trial heard yesterday.

The disclosure came on a day of glimpses behind the scenes of a tabloid newspaper when the court also heard of voicemail messages being handed over by kiss-and-tell sources, Heather Mills being taped while talking to a prostitute and the paper publishing "spoof editions" to mislead rival titles.

Emma Harvey, who was Andy Coulson's PA when he was deputy editor of the News of the World, told the court that she was aware of cash being paid to the royal source. But Timothy Langdale QC, for Coulson, said he would not be naming the person.

Harvey said she had never been aware of any phone hacking at the paper. Coulson had asked her to transcribe a tape recording of Mills, the former wife of Paul McCartney, talking to a prostitute but that had been recorded by the prostitute, she said.

The paper's former night editor, Harry Scott, was shown two internal emails written by a senior journalist about an alleged orgy involving actors from the BBC drama EastEnders. One referred to a request for an actor's voicemail and text messages. The other said: "Getting all texts pictured and have voicemail messages on tape... The texts and voicemail provide proof."

Scott told the court: "That's not phone hacking. That's the person who is giving the kiss-and-tell either giving the paper their home phone answer messages or putting in a call to the person who is the subject of the story and taping it."

He said that references to voicemail in a published story about Milly Dowler would not have made him suspect that the paper had hacked her phone. Reading it now, he said, he would have guessed that the information had come from police sources.

Revealing something of the newspaper's tradecraft, Scott said the paper sometimes published a "spoof" first edition which would be sold on the streets of London, with "disposable garbage' on its front page, in order to conceal from rivals an exclusive front page story which was printed in the real first edition and loaded on to trains. The spoof story would have to be true and strong, he added. "If you produce a story about Jackanory on the front page, it's obviously a spoof."

During the day, former News of the World staff gave differing accounts of their awareness of Glenn Mulcaire, who has pleaded guilty to hacking phones for the paper. The court has been told that neither Rebekah Brooks nor Andy Coulson had heard his name while they worked at the News of the World.

The jury were shown a story which had been published in the paper in August 2002, which described how Mulcaire had played a game as striker for AFC Wimbledon and which described him in print as "part of our special investigations team." Geoff Sweet, a sports journalist on the paper, who wrote the story, was asked how he knew that. He replied: "I was part of the News of the World empire, and it was just generally known."

Cross-examined on behalf of Rebekah Brooks and Coulson, Sweet said he could not name any person who had told him about Mulcaire, that he could not remember writing the story and that the line about Mulcaire's work for the paper "may have been put in by the sports desk to add a bit of kudos to the story".

But Harvey and Scott said they had not heard Mulcaire's name until he was arrested in 2006. The newsdesk secretary, Frances Carman, said she remembered that "a man called Glenn used to call up from time to time asking to speak to people on the desk."

Brooks, Coulson, Stuart Kuttner and Ian Edmondson deny conspiring to intercept communications. The trial continues.

Nick Davies
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Phone-hacking trial: lawyers push back and forth on subject of who knew what

Financial controller explains private world of 'approval authority policies' and 'generic vendor codes'

The jury in the phone-hacking trial on Monday were led deep into the bureaucratic inner world of News International in search of an answer to the question which the Crown has repeatedly posed to them: "Who knew?"

For several hours, the company's group financial controller, Michael Gill, explained his private world of "approval authority policies" and "generic vendor codes" while lawyers for the two sides pushed back and forth amid the detail.

For Rebekah Brooks, Jonathan Laidlaw QC produced a collection of fat files, each containing 176 financial spreadsheet pages, warning the jury as he handed them over: "Beware of men in wigs bearing bundles. There are a lot more to come in due course."

Questioned by Laidlaw, Gill agreed that the files showed that, as editor of the News of the World, Brooks had never personally authorised any of the weekly payments of £1,769 to the paper's specialist phone-hacker, Glenn Mulcaire. Payments of under £2,000 could be authorised by desk editors, the court heard.

Questioned by Andrew Edis for the prosecution, Gill agreed that Mulcaire's annual contract, originally worth £92,000, would need a higher authorisation: "It should have legal approval because it is a contract and editorial approval at the total amount. You would always want to have approval of the total amount of the contract." As editor, Brooks was able to authorise payments up to £50,000 and, on some occasions, more, the court heard.

Answering Laidlaw, Gill explained that in a typical sample month, Mulcaire – known to the files as "vendor 552742" – received only four payments among "hundreds and hundreds" of transactions, filling a hundred pages, each of 30 lines. His weekly payments were part of an annual budget of £160m, Gill agreed.

Answering questions from Edis, Gill said that the editorial budget of £23m, for which Rebekah Brooks was responsible, was being cut from one year to another by £1.5m. In his opening speech, Edis showed the jury an email which she had written urging senior staff to keep within spending limits.

Earlier, one of the company's in-house editorial lawyers, Justin Walford, told the jury that Brooks was " a demanding editor". He said: "She was, she is a strong personality. She has strong views. She expected hard work and everyone pulling in the same direction to get stories into the newspaper." Often, she would let her deputy deal with legal problems but "she did want to know in outline what advice was given".

Walford described the Sun as "a national institution". He added: "Obviously there are many people who don't like what the Sun stands for – Page 3 or politics or whatever. But most fair people would say they were highly professional. You don't get to work on the Sun unless you are very good. Obviously I work there but that is my honest opinion."

Rebekah Brooks, Andy Coulson, Stuart Kuttner and Ian Edmondson deny conspiring to intercept communications. The trial continues.

Nick Davies
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Charles Clarke tells trial of being tabloid target over affair claims

Court hears NoW put adviser's home under surveillance as the Sun offered 'sympathetic' treatment of untrue gossip

The former home secretary Charles Clarke has described how he became a tabloid target after the Westminster "gossip mill" produced false claims that he was having an affair with one of his special advisers.

The jury in the Old Bailey phone-hacking trial was told that the News of the World intercepted voicemail of the adviser, Hannah Pawlby, and mounted surveillance on her home in 2005.

She may have missed messages left for her by the paper's editor because they had already been listened to by the newspaper's specialist phone hacker.

Separately, a year later, the political editor of the Sun, Trevor Kavanagh, offered to treat the story of the supposed affair sympathetically if Clarke would confess to him – but Clarke said he had told the Sun he would sue for libel if it published the story. Clarke said: "I have never had a relationship of that kind with Hannah. I wouldn't dream of doing so. The suggestion is completely untrue."

Pawlby, who had been Clarke's diary secretary before becoming his special adviser at the Department for Education, said she had first heard the rumours in late 2004 as Clarke moved to become home secretary, taking her with him.

By April 2005, the NoW's specialist hacker, Glenn Mulcaire, had logged phone numbers for her and her parents in notes were shown to the jury of nine women and three men. In mid-June, according to phone records, Mulcaire repeatedly hacked into her voice messages while the paper's chief reporter, Neville Thurlbeck, spent Saturday 18 June keeping watch outside her home, reporting back to the newsdesk by email: "Girl surfaced from bed around 11am, made brief trip to shops ... Nothing new on the message front."

At 1.05pm that day the editor, Andy Coulson, left a message for Pawlby, which was then recorded by Mulcaire and retrieved when police searched his home.

It said: "I have got a story that we are running tomorrow that I would really like to talk to Charles about. I wouldn't do this in normal circumstances but it's quite a serious story and previously Charles has been helpful, he has suggested that when there are these things that come up, we should speak directly to him."

Pawlby said she had not heard this message at the time, because it had been recorded as an old, saved message – possibly as a result of Mulcaire listening to it before she did. At 2.45, Coulson left a second message, apologising for hassling her and urging her to call him. Pawlby said this message also went unheard by her, for the same reason.

The NoW did not publish a story about the supposed affair. In the summer of 2006, Clarke said, Kavanagh told him he needed to see him urgently and he had agreed they should meet in Clarke's office behind the Speaker's chair. "Trevor Kavanagh told me he had evidence that Hannah and I were having an affair and he would try to get it sympathetically covered in the Sun if I confessed it to him and gave him the story. I said such a relationship never existed and so there was no basis on which we could continue to talk."

Pawlby told the court that she had been contacted at around the same time by a reporter from the Sun's political gossip column, The Whip: "She said that she had a picture of Charles and I and that we were having an affair and that they were going to run the story and what did I say to that. I said I wasn't having an affair."

Coulson, Rebekah Brooks, Ian Edmondson and Stuart Kuttner deny conspiring to intercept communications.

The trial continues.

Nick Davies
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Princes William and Harry targeted by News of the World, trial told

Editors were kept informed about stories based on intercepted voicemail messages from royal household staff, jury hears

The News of the World's royal specialist, Clive Goodman, exchanged emails with Andy Coulson and other editors discussing news stories which involved intercepting voicemail messages from royal household staff, the phone-hacking trial heard on Wednesday .

The Old Bailey jury head that one message sent in January 2005 from Goodman to Coulson, the then editor of the Sunday newspaper, discussed a potential news story about injuries suffered by Prince Harry. Goodman told Coulson: "The health inf[ormation] is from the doc himself, scammed from Helen Asprey, Harry and William's PA, so it's solid."

The jury heard that the director of medical services at the English Institute of Sport, Dr Rod Jaques, had left a message for Asprey a day earlier, telling her that "our mutual friend" was now much better with his knee but continuing to have problems with his shoulder and foot.

In his email to the editor on 22 January, Goodman suggested checking the story with the Clarence House communications secretary, Paddy Harverson. Six minutes later, the jury heard, Coulson replied, saying simply: "He won't help will he?" The following day, Goodman published a story referring to Prince Harry's wrenched shoulder and infected foot.

The jury was told that prosecution and defence both accepted that Goodman and the tabloid's specialist phone hacker, Glenn Mulcaire, had intercepted hundreds of voicemails from royal phones. In April 2006, four aides had been hacked a total of 296 times, an average of nearly 10 royal hacks a day.

In the context of the hacking of Harverson's phone, the Crown produced emails from 15 April 2006 in which Goodman sent the draft of a story about Prince William to the assistant editor, Ian Edmondson. Edmondson emailed back to ask: "What about the line William says I was pissed but I wasn't that bad?"

Goodman replied: "That's a bit too much knowledge to expose to a wider readership. Massively dangerous to the source ..."

In relation to the hacking of the Duchess of Cornwall's son, Tom Parker Bowles, the jury were shown an email from Goodman to the news editor, James Weatherup, written in February 2005 which apparently referred to an assistant editor, Greg Miskiw, who, the jury have been told, frequently assigned tasks to Mulcaire.

Goodman's email read: "Got a mobile – getting Greg to do a few dark arts." Weatherup replied: "Don't know wot u mean ..."

The jury have been told that Miskiw and Weatherup have both pleaded guilty to conspiring to intercept voicemail messages and that Goodman was previously convicted of hacking into royal phones. Coulson and Edmondson deny conspiring to intercept phone messages.

Earlier, the jury heard how glamour model Lorna Hogan was paid thousands of pounds by the News of the World to target celebrities in nightclubs. Hogan told the court that she had become pregnant by Calum Best, son of footballer George Best, and then sold two stories about their affair before allowing the paper to publish a picture from a scan of her unborn child.

Hogan said she had worked for an agency called Supermodels, whose owner, Phil Green, "arranged for girls to go to clubs, to be in a position to meet celebrities" and she had a working relationship with the News of the World for "some considerable time", selling them stories for as much as £10,000.

One of the paper's reporters, Chris Tate, would drive to her house and pay her in cash, she said.

During her two-month relationship with Calum Best in early 2006, she sold two stories which appeared in the paper in March ("Lust like dad") and April ("I'm having Calum Best's baby"), the court heard.

She then had lunch with Edmondson, who, she claimed, had put pressure on her to sell a scan of her unborn child. When Best heard that she was handing over the picture, he texted her: "How could you be so low to sell pictures of an unborn child?" Hogan denied being paid for the picture.

Best told the court that he had been paid £2,000 by the paper for a story exposing an incident in a nightclub with Elizabeth Jagger, daughter of Mick Jagger, which she had not wanted to become public. He also said another story in the paper, about his problems with drugs, had been supplied without his permission by a friend of his father's wife in whom he had confided.

The trial continues.

• This article was amended on 14 November 2013 to change "scanned" to "scammed" in the second paragraph

Nick Davies
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News of the World spied on Mail on Sunday, phone-hacking trial told

Spying operation was said to have been part of effort to pursue story of John Prescott's affair with his diary secretary

The News of the World obtained the log-in details for the Mail on Sunday's internal computer system and repeatedly hacked the phones of the paper's journalists when they feared the rival Sunday title might scoop them, the jury in the phone-hacking trial heard on Tuesday.

The spying operation was said to have been conducted in the spring of 2006 as part of the News of the World's effort to pursue the story of the affair between the deputy prime minister, John Prescott, and his diary secretary, Tracey Temple.

Details were given to the Old Bailey jury on a day when the crown presented evidence of a catalogue of voicemail interception which, it is agreed by defence and prosecution, was carried out by the News of the World's specialist hacker, Glenn Mulcaire.

Prosecuting counsel identified targets from the worlds of royalty, politics, sport and entertainment including Kate Middleton when she was Prince William's girlfriend, Tessa Jowell when she was media secretary, and Sir Paul McCartney during his marriage to Heather Mills.

The jury heard that in their pursuit of the Prescott story, the News of the World's news editor, Ian Edmondson, allegedly began the working week on Tuesday 25 April by tasking Mulcaire to target Temple, her ex-husband and her ex-boyfriend. By the next day, Edmondson was emailing the News of the World editor, Andy Coulson, to open a second front.

"I have Tracey Temple's mobile number. I want to shock her with a figure. How deep are your pockets?"

Two minutes later, Coulson replied: "Start at 100k."

The offer was texted to Temple with a promise that "we will beat any other bid". But she failed to respond.

On the Thursday evening, the court heard, the Whitehall editor, Keith Gladdis, sent Edmondson a mobile phone number for Prescott's chief of staff, Joan Hammell.

Edmondson immediately texted Mulcaire, and Mulcaire was hacking into her voicemail by 10.34am on the Friday. At 2.27pm, he emailed Edmondson with details about her phone and a short message: "Their [sic] is 45 messages."

On Friday evening, apparently fearful that the Mail on Sunday was in touch with Temple, Mulcaire was allegedly given the task of accessing the voicemail of two of the rival paper's journalists, Dennis Rice and Sebastian Hamilton. According to call data shown to the jury, Mulcaire at 5.58pm hacked Rice for two minutes and then immediately hacked Hamilton for four minutes.

Over the next 48 hours, Mulcaire and somebody using a News International number repeatedly accessed the voicemail of the two rivals, sometimes hacking both of them at the same time.

By Saturday morning, Edmondson was speculating on the story which he hoped to run to spoil the Mail on Sunday's exclusive: "This is the planned spoiler," he wrote in an email to Coulson and other senior journalists. "Hopefully it will include Prezzer's diary secretary's secret sex diary – how she logged her lust for Johnny Two Shags, BJ for DPM, poss pills to keep it up, other flings, wined and dined using public purse, facing resignation."

The next day, the Mail on Sunday ran three pages about Prescott's affair while the News of the World published "Prezzer – the sex diaries." The jury were told that the paper continued to hack the voicemail of Rice and Hamilton for a further two months.

Earlier, the crown displayed a document kept by Mulcaire, headed Target Evaluation, listing 18 names including: Middleton (ranked No 14) and four royal employees; Max Clifford (at No 1); Kerry Katona; Sven-Göran Eriksson; and Gordon Taylor.

The jury was also given a detailed account of the hacking of the phone of Jowell in 2006 when her husband, David Mills, was caught up in a bribery scandal in Italy.

As an illustration of media interest in the story, the crown displayed the alleged record of texts sent to Jowell's accountant, Sue Mullins, by a Sunday Times reporter, Gareth Walsh, claiming that she had made a false declaration to the Inland Revenue and adding: "As a result, you are likely to become subject of a Sunday Times article. To discuss, please call." When the accountant refused to breach Jowell's confidentiality, Walsh replied that he would "keep your name out of print only if you co-operate".

The crown said Mulcaire had accessed Jowell's voicemail 29 times over a three-month period. On a single day, 20 April, according to call data, he hacked her at 11.30 and again at 11.34 before accessing David Mills' mobile phone at 11.36 and then at 11.47 emailing Edmondson with details of their phones and a short message: "Substantial traffic both ways … also looks like she selling up [sic] … end."

Coulson, Edmondson, Rebekah Brooks and Stuart Kuttner deny conspiring to intercept voicemail. The trial continues.

Nick Davies
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Phone-hacking trial told that 'hyenas' pursued David Blunkett

Tapes seized from private investigator Glenn Mulcaire featuring messages left by former minister played to Old Bailey

David Blunkett left anxious phone messages for a woman who had wrongly been named as his lover, apologising to her for the press attention and describing the journalists who were pursuing them as "absolutely vile" and "hyenas", the jury in the phone-hacking trial heard on Monday.

But in a statement to police, the woman in question, Sally Anderson, an estate agent, also disclosed that she had allowed the celebrity PR agent Max Clifford to record some of Blunkett's messages and that she had then sold them to the Sunday People. She told police she could not remember how much she had been paid for them.

Completing its account of the News of the World's investigation into Blunkett, the Crown on Monday showed the Old Bailey jury notes made by the paper's specialist phone hacker, Glenn Mulcaire, on which he had recorded the personal details of Anderson's partner, ex-boyfriend, grandmother, aunt, father, mother, brother, cousin, a close friend, her osteopath and two of Blunkett's special advisers.

As the News of the World and other tabloids pursued the false story of their supposed affair in autumn 2005, the then secretary of state for work and pensions left a series of messages on Anderson's mobile phone, speculating with increasing anger about the newspapers' source. Some of these were hacked, tape-recorded by Mulcaire and then seized by police. On Monday, they were played in court.

"Someone very, very close has done a really phenomenal piece of work on destroying both our lives at this moment in time," Blunkett was heard saying, "and it's vile, it's absolutely vile. Whoever it is, I hope they rot in hell. I'm very sorry." He added that she must rue the day she met him. "I don't know who has done this to us, but they are real bastards. They've done it for money and they've done it for themselves. And the world stinks."

In another message, he said: "I do think that someone has done a pretty good job – chapter and verse, times, places, everything. That's pretty sophisticated, to say the least."

Later, calling from abroad, Blunkett told her in vivid language: "The hyenas are still trying to get me, but when I'm back I will shed a little light, and they will all run back into the jungle."

The jury of nine women and three men thereafter heard a statement made to police by Anderson in which she described how she had held two meetings with Max Clifford, during one of which Blunkett had called her.

She had then allowed Clifford to record some of the messages left for her and, at a meeting in Clifford's office, she talked to reporters from the Sunday People and agreed to sell them the messages.

Parts of the messages were published verbatim by the paper. Blunkett later sued for libel over the story, she told police, and she made a public apology to him.

Earlier in the day's proceedings, the Old Bailey jury heard that an affair between Blunkett and the Spectator publisher Kimberly Quinn was known to 13 people close to him. One of them included one of his advisers, Kath Raymond, who was in a relationship with the then executive chairman of News International, Les Hinton.

Blunkett and Quinn had been on two holidays together and to a state banquet at Buckingham Palace. "They were hiding in plain sight," Blunkett's special adviser, Huw Evans, told police. "I had always thought it was a matter of time before someone worked it out."

Evans told the court that immediately before the News of the World exposed the affair with Quinn in August 2004, he had challenged the paper's then editor, Andy Coulson, to explain what evidence he had to justify the story.

"I remember his reply and the tone of his voice, which was flat and unequivocal. He was absolutely certain that the story was accurate, and he was going to run it. I remember at the time remaining puzzled as to why he would be so certain," said Blunkett's former special adviser.

Coulson's NoW subsequently published the story revealing the existence of the affair between the politician and the married magazine publisher without naming Quinn.

Later on that Sunday, Evans said, he had spoken by phone to Rebekah Brooks, then editing the Sun. He told the court that Brooks had begun the conversation by "asking how David was, inquiring after his welfare", before going on to tell him that she knew Quinn's identity and planned to publish it on the following day, which her newspaper did.

Coulson and Brooks, plus Stuart Kuttner, the former NoW managing editor and Ian Edmondson, the former news editor of the Sunday tabloid, all deny conspiring to intercept voicemail. The trial is expected to last into the New Year.

The Leslie incident

Former Blue Peter presenter John Leslie and model Abi Titmuss had their phones illegally hacked by Glenn Mulcaire on behalf of the News of the World, the prosecution in the hacking trial told the jury.

The jury was shown handwritten notes kept by Mulcaire, the News of the World's specialist hacker, that included references to Leslie and Titmuss and their mobile numbers in October 2002. The court heard this was just before the News of the World published a story relating to unproven allegations that he had raped Ulrika Jonsson.

One note from October 2002 featuring Leslie's name included the words "do both mobiles".

The court heard that Leslie was named in 2002 by TV presenter Matthew Wright over false allegations that he had raped Ulrika Jonsson. No charges were ever brought against him in this respect.

The jury were told that two other women made allegations against Leslie in December 2002, leading to his arrest. But the case was dropped in July 2003 because of a lack of evidence.

He said in a police statement read to the jury that 2002 was "a traumatic time in my life", and the intense media interest in him only abated three or four years later when he moved to Scotland and stopped working in television.

Prosecutor Mark Bryant-Heron read the court a statement from Titmuss in which she said she had a relationship with Leslie "on and off for five years". At the time of the rape allegations, she was not going out with Leslie, but she maintained a close friendship with him and recalled visiting him in his flat the day after the story broke, she said.

Counsel for Rebekah Brooks questioned a detective in court over the Mulcaire 2002 notes saying the note shown to the jury from 2002 with the words "do both mobiles" did not amount of evidence of a hack.

The jury was told by prosecutor Bryant- Heron that Mulcaire made 19 calls to Titmuss's mobile phone between January and June 2006.

The handwritten pages kept by Mulcaire have not been shown in public before. Those seen by the jury including one headed up "Target Evaluation" with a more than 10 names neatly listed, including Max Clifford, Gordon Taylor, Titmuss and members of the royal household.

Other pages were a jumble of names, numbers and shorthand notes such as "Voda" for Vodafone" and often with a first name on the top left hand corner which the prosecution says was the name of the person from the News of the World giving Mulcaire instructions.

Lisa O'Carroll and Caroline Davies

Nick Davies
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