The Hack is the latest true-crime drama to be added to ITV’s impressive oeuvre, which provides an in-depth look at the phone hacking scandal that took down one of the world’s most famous newspapers.
David Tennant plays Nick Davies, the journalist that worked tirelessly for years on the story in spite of the many obstacles that prevented the truth from coming to light.
One of the key players who was arrested and charged with conspiracy to hack voicemails was Rebekah Brooks, former editor of both The Sun and News of the World during a period where phone hacking was allegedly commonplace. Ultimately, she was not found guilty of any crimes.
Here, Cosmopolitan UK looks back at what happened to Brooks during this time – and where she ended up after the dust settled.
Who is Rebekah Brooks?
Journalist Rebekah Brooks grew up in Warrington with her parents who ran a tree-pruning business, and attended the local comprehensive. It’s an unlikely start in life for a woman who went on to become one of the most powerful people in the country, having not been cut from the same public school/Oxbridge cloth that many in the media seem to stem from.
While those who knew Brooks at the time did not describe her as academic, she was certainly charismatic. In a profile of Brooks for the BBC in 2011, former childhood friend Louise Weir described the editor as “very charming and she's always been able to get what she wants out of people, even if they don't really like her.”
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At 14, she decided to pursue journalism and helped out at a local paper before going to work for the now-defunct outlet The Post. When the paper folded, she found herself working at the News of the World in 1989 as a secretary.
What was Rebekah Brook’s role at News of the World?
Working her way up from features writer (in addition to briefly moving to sister newspaper The Sun), Brooks was announced as the editor of News of the World in 2000. She was the youngest editor on Fleet Street at the time, and was thought to be incredibly influential.
Shortly after her appointment, the nation was shocked and saddened after schoolgirl Sarah Payne was abducted and murdered by predator Roy Whiting. The high-profile case saw Brooks launch the campaign, For Sarah, in memory of the murdered schoolgirl and which encouraged the ‘naming and shaming’ of child sex offenders via a public register.
Unfortunately, while the campaign was successful in many aspects (prompting the creation of Sarah's Law, allowing parents to ask police if someone with access to their child has been convicted of abuse), it also saw some people falsely labelled as predators and subject to attack.
Outside of this activism, Brooks was praised by former editor of The Sun, David Yelland, for her approachable demeanour, “She's good at schmoozing showbiz people. She can turn people over and have dinner with them the next day.”
Brooks' connections even led to her first marriage with Ross Kemp (of EastEnders’ Grant Mitchell fame) between 2002 and 2009.
Elsewhere in 2009, Brooks gave up her editor’s role and became chief executive of News International, the parent company of newspapers that included The Sun and News of the World.
What was Rebekah Brooks accused of in the phone hacking scandal?
Brooks denied being involved in phone hacking, with a previous incident of royal reporter Clive Goodman, who was jailed for four months in 2007 for hacking phones, being described as a ‘rogue reporter’.
However, in 2003, Brooks did admit to the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee that her newspaper had previously “paid police for information”.
In some respects, Brooks rowed back on this eight years later in a letter to the home affairs select committee chairman, Labour MP Keith Vaz.
“As can be seen from the transcript, I was responding to a specific line of questioning on how newspapers get information," Brooks wrote. "My intention was simply to comment generally on the widely-held belief that payments had been made in the past to police officers.
"If, in doing so, I gave the impression that I had knowledge of any specific cases, I can assure you that this was not my intention.”
While numerous stories of phone hacking came to light, it was only when it was reported that Milly Dowler, the schoolgirl murdered by Levi Bellfield, had had her voicemails hacked, that phone hacking made national headlines.
Brooks initially did not resign following reports – however, following mounting public pressure, she stepped down from her chief executive role.
“As chief executive of the company, I feel a deep sense of responsibility for the people we have hurt and I want to reiterate how sorry I am for what we now know to have taken place,” she said in a statement in 2011. “I have believed that the right and responsible action has been to lead us through the heat of the crisis. However my desire to remain on the bridge has made me a focal point of the debate. This is now detracting attention from all our honest endeavours to fix the problems of the past.
“Therefore I have given Rupert and James Murdoch my resignation. While it has been a subject of discussion, this time my resignation has been accepted”
In 2012, The Guardian reported she was paid £10.8 million by the Murdoch family's News International (a much higher figure than initially suspected), with patriarch Rupert Murdoch allegedly telling her to “travel the world on him” until the furore died down.
Brooks and Coulson were charged with 'conspiracy to hack mobile voicemails' alongside others connected to the newspaper in 2012. Brooks was also charged with two counts of conspiracy to pay public officials and two counts of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.
However, in 2014, Brooks was acquitted of all charges.
In response at the time, Brooks said outside court: “I am innocent of the crimes that I was charged with and I feel vindicated by the unanimous verdicts.
“When I was arrested, it was in the middle of a maelstrom of controversy, of politics and of comment. Some of that was fair but much of it was not so I am very grateful to the jury for coming to their decision.”
What is Rebekah Brooks doing now?
In 2015, she was reappointed as CEO of News UK, the renamed News International. She is married to racehorse trainer, Charlie Brooks, with the pair sharing a daughter who was born in 2012. Brooks mostly remains out the public eye.
Kimberley Bond is a Multiplatform Writer for Harper’s Bazaar, focusing on the arts, culture, careers and lifestyle. She previously worked as a Features Writer for Cosmopolitan UK, and has bylines at The Telegraph, The Independent and British Vogue among countless others.
