Rebekah Brooks arrested
This is not as big a deal as the screaming headlines would suggest. In Britain people are routinely “arrested” for the purpose of questioning. Brooks is being questioned, she has not been criminally charged. In America we call this “bringing someone in for questioning.” Note that she was “arrested by appointment.”
The New York Times reports:
British Police Arrest Rebekah Brooks in Phone Hacking
LONDON—The British police on Sunday arrested Rebekah Brooks, the former head of Rupert Murdoch’s media operations in Britain, according to a former associate at News International, the newspaper group at the heart of a phone-hacking scandal convulsing the Murdoch empire, the British political elite and the police….
A police statement did not identify Ms. Brooks by name but said a 43-year-old woman had been detained for questioning by officers investigating both the phone-hacking scandal and payments made to corrupt police officers. A News International official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, confirmed that the woman detained was Ms. Brooks.
Britain’s Press Association news agency said she was arrested by appointment at a London police station at around midday and remained in custody.
The move came just two days after the embattled Ms. Brooks quit as chief executive at News International, the latest maneuver as the Murdoch family struggled to contain the fallout from a scandal.
- end of initial entry -
Garrick writes:
The phone hacking scandal is mostly much ado about nothing.
The UK lefty newsies are in full hysteria mode, trying to rile up the public, are trying to destroy Murdoch. Fewer readers for Murdoch publications means more readers for them. Seems phone hacking is common in British newspapers which are in a very competitive scene. Rupert Murdoch looks old and frail these days. The lefties are trying to deliver a body blow. Murdoch’s sons are known to be more liberal than he and would bend Fox News to the left.
From Pajamas Media:
None of this is to excuse the behaviour of the hackers at the NoW and their enablers. But it’s an open secret that phone hacking is rife among British tabloids, and the Guardian and BBC axis have chosen to play down this fact in their single-minded pursuit of Murdoch and the NoW. Those other tabloids have been happy to play along, although with at least one and perhaps more public inquires [sic] on the way, they may yet regret helping to open this particular can of worms.
Few will mourn the passing of the NoW beyond its loyal band of sleaze-addicted readers. But at the same time, the manner in which a left-wing newspaper has been able to collude with the state-funded broadcaster to lead an attack [on] an organization whose power and political alignment they resented should be deeply troubling.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 17, 2011 10:23 AM | Send