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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