'Highly likely' Rebekah Brooks is in CPS files

It is highly likely that in the files handed to the Crown Prosecution Service by detectives investigating phone hacking, is the name Rebekah Brooks.

Rupert Murdoch’s former right hand woman was one of those arrested for perverting the course of justice recently and that is the allegation in one of the four files that are now being looked at by prosecutors.

If the Director of Public Prosecutions were to decide to charge Mrs Brooks it would be incredible, but that is a big ‘if’. Today the Crown Prosecution Service published guidelines for it’s handling of the cases against journalists.

The guidelines say that the seriousness of the allegation and the amount of evidence must be balanced against whether the public interest was in any way served by the journalist’s work.

One of the issues to be considered, the guidelines say for example, is whether the story prompted an important public debate.

But how do you define an important public debate? Is a story of a footballer’s extra marital affair important enough? Such stories often lead to intense public discussion.

No wonder Keir Starmer, the Director of Public Prosecutions, told me in an interview today that the decisions will be very difficult. And no one should assume that the decision will be to bring charges.