Hacking trial: Jury sifting evidence for sixth day

The jury in the News of the World phone-hacking trial is continuing its deliberations for a sixth day.

Former editors Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson, along with retired managing editor Stuart Kuttner, are accused of being part of a conspiracy dating back to 2000 and spanning six years.

For more than seven months, the eight women and three men of the jury have listened to the evidence in Court 12 of the Old Bailey.

Since they were sent out last Wednesday afternoon, they have been considering verdicts for more than 21 hours.

Ex-No 10 spin doctor Coulson, 46, is also accused of two counts of conspiring with former NotW royal editor Clive Goodman, 56, to commit misconduct in a public office by paying police officers for two royal directories.

Brooks, 46, faces the same charge over signing off payments to a Sun journalist's "number one military contact" between 2004 and 2012.

The former News International (NI) chief executive is also accused of plotting with her former personal assistant Cheryl Carter, 50, to pervert the course of justice by removing seven boxes from the company archive days before she was arrested in 2011.

Brooks, along with her husband Charlie and NI director of security Mark Hanna, 51, is further charged with perverting the course of justice by hiding or destroying potential evidence around the time of police searches in July 2011.

Coulson, of Charing, Kent; Brooks, of Churchill, Oxfordshire; Hanna, of Buckingham; Carter, of Chelmsford, Essex; Goodman of Addlestone, Surrey; and 74-year-old Kuttner, of Woodford Green, Essex, deny the charges.

PA