Rebekah Brooks cleared, Andy Coulson found guilty........

[Jah Lush]

Money and friends in high places.

This - http://www.standard.co.uk/news/londoners-diary/brooks-the-barrister-and-old-school-ties-7778165.html

And this - http://www.thedrum.com/news/2013/06/05/prime-minister-s-barrister-brother-heads-legal-chambers-representing-rebekah-brooks

The comments are well worth reading in the latter too.

[Jah Lush]

Mac - he lived practically across the road from me. I'd often see the slimy fecker and the other "gentlemen" of the press camped outside his front door. His house may have gone up for sale two years ago when the case first came to court but I think I can remember quite clearly when the removal vans arrived.

[PokerTime]

That certainly seems to be the view. Although getting a jury to find the desired verdict can't always be guaranteed, finding a prosecutor and/or witnesses that play ball definitely can be done. Like most people I'm astounded that both Mr and Mrs Brooks were found not guilty. There's no way you can be that high up in a newspaper and not know how stories are being sought and found. I'd totally understand if Coulson feels like the hog roast!

[Jah Lush]

Yes, he seems to have been made the scapegoat because he lied to David Cameron about his involvement in phone hacking when he hired him. Obviously, he's guilty as hell but I fail to see how Rebecca Brooks couldn't have possibly known about what was going on at the paper. She was shagging Coulsen at the time and they worked together very closely. She must have known.

[El Pibe]

To be fair if was doing something criminal the last person I'd tell is someone i was having an affair with, especially a colleague. these things usually turn out badly!!

[Claire-T]

She looked into the jury's eyes and turned them to stone.

[Loz]

Claire-T Wrote:

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> She looked into the jury's eyes and turned them to stone.

More likely slipped each one a note outlining exactly what information she had on each of them...

[????]

An amusing aside of all of this sort of thing is the temporary conversion of swathes of guardianista's from "prison doesn't work" to "hang, em flog 'em throw away the key" types :)

[Otta]

Can't someone think that prison doesn't really work, whilst also thinking that someone who is guilty should be found guilty?

[????]

I'm talking about punishment not guilt, the two are seperate. i'm also slightly fishing.... but you've spoilt it now :(

[Otta]

I know, I knew as I posted I should have left it to see if anyone would bite.

But in all seriousness are you honestly seeing people calling for them to have that kind of punishment? That seems a bit mental even if they are scum.

[DaveR]

I can't get excited about the whole phone-hacking palaver anyway. Most people (the cops included) didn't think phone hacking was a crime at all, and there are lots of other perfectly legal ways of getting hold of people's private information and splashing it all over the front pages. Even the payoffs for coppers etc. in return for stories are hardly big news - it's been around for ever, and whilst it's definitely not legal I wouldn't class it alongside proper corruption in terms of seriousness.

The Brooks trial was great entertainment (including for the lawyers involved, with the added satisfaction for them of being paid handsomely) but it was never actually important.

[*Bob*]

Phonehacking blew up because of the Dowler case, full stop.

Would the majority of the public have been up in arms about listening to to the intimate affairs of Boris Johnson, Heather Mills, Prezza, Gazza or The Royals? Would they bollocks! Half the population pay to lap that shit up every day!

[Jah Lush]

Doesn't make it right though.

[*Bob*]

So many of the general public have a perverse sense of right and wrong.

One day cackling over Gazza having fallen off the wagon again; the next day 'outraged' at the source of the information.

Does the addict not share some responsibility - along with the dealer?

[steveo]

She looked the jury in the eye and turned parts of them into stone

[Parkdrive]

Jah Lush Wrote:

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> Doesn't make it right though.

Spot on Jah.

[Loz]

I was reading the Independent at lunchtime and they said that just about all of the hacking incidences presented at the trial occurred under Coulson's watch. The one exception that was under Brookes' editorial reign, she was conveniently away on holiday at the time.

Make of that what you will.

[steveo]

Follow the money

Unless they did and she genuinely wasn't aware of the thousands flying out the door

[Otta]

I take your point *bob*, but at the end of the day they DID hack the Dowler girl's phone and that crossed a line.

[DaveR]

"Doesn't make it right though."

Obviously. And as it turns out some of it was actually criminal, but still hardly crime of the century. Re Millie Dowler, it was the hacking equivalent of doorstepping the family of a murder victim, which still goes on of course. The point being that it is not the illegality that matters, but the lack of respect/decency. And that's where the hypocrisy comes in - many consumers don't really care about decency or respect in journalism where the victims are unsymapthetic and they want to read the stories.

[david_carnell]

Jah Lush Wrote:

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> Doesn't make it right though.

Didn't you used to work for a red-top? At any point did you get wind that the paper would go to illegal efforts to get stories? Phone-hacking or anything else? Because anyone I've spoken reckons it's rife and you'd have to live under a rock to not be aware of dodgy goings on.

Yet people still work there and people still buy it.

People suck. *Bob* is spot on with the hypocrisy on the part of most of the public - they want to devour endless celeb-driven drivel yet cry foul when they find out about poor Hugh Grant's phone being hacked. It's as much push from consumers for this dirge that drives the media to ever desperate lengths.

Anyone complaining about this looks at that Daily Mail website sidebar of shame? You're partly to blame for all this. Stop looking at pictures of Kardashians and read a book.

[*Bob*]

They did.

But the point remains. For many - whether they deserved to get the full weight of the law thrown at them hinged upon whether there was sympathy for the victim (or mostly one victim in particular in this case) - not on a point of law or 'right' and 'wrong'.

If the victims had just been Max Clifford, Heather Mills and George Galloway a ?100m trial would not have been on the cards.

Great to see some unlikeable people squirm in court, but there's a slightly grotty level of schadenfreude, hypocrisy and double standards in play which clearly hasn't occurred to Mr & Mrs Bloke in Street - who've happily spent the last ten years tittering over a picture of Sienna Miller's tits as photographed through a long lens.

[*Bob*]

Cross posted with DC and DaveR

[El Pibe]

I think it boils down to people just don't like proper gingas, especially if they look vaguely like a witch.

Thogh beating grant mitchell up is pretty funny.