Rebekah Brooks 'vindicated' by hacking verdicts

The former News International chief executive added that her thoughts were with former colleagues who face future trials.

Flanked by her husband Charlie, Rebekah Brooks spoke for the first time since she was cleared of phone hacking charges and said she felt "vindicated by the unanimous verdicts."

ITV News' correspondent Emily Morgan reports:

Read More: Rebekah Brooks: 'I feel vindicated by verdicts'

Rebekah Brooks said her thoughts were with her former colleagues who face future trials as she spoke on the steps of her North London home.

She said: "I have to be careful for my former colleagues sake what I say" she said.

She added that her thoughts were with them as they face trials in the future.

Her husband Charlie Brooks, who was cleared alongside his wife, said he concerned about former News of the World editor Andy Coulson who was found guilty of phone hacking.

Read More: Rebekah Brooks: 'I feel vindicated by verdicts'

He said: "Obviously I am really concerned for Andy and (his wife) Eloise and their family."

Former News International chief executive Rebekah Books spoke for the first time since being acquitted of all charges relating to phone hacking at News International.

Watch: Brooks cleared of all charges after eight-month trial

Speaking in central London, an emotional Brooks said she said she felt vindicated by the unanimous decision by the jury, and was very grateful to them.

Read: Rebekah Brooks: I feel vindicated by verdicts

The former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks and her husband Charlie have been speaking for the first time since she was acquitted of all charges relating to phone hacking, and he was acquitted of perverting the course of justice.

Rebekah Brooks said the past two years had been very tough for her, but she was proud of the journalists she worked with. She said the experience of the trial taught her valuable lessons and hoped she was the wiser for it.

She said she was vindicated by the verdict, and her thoughts were now with her former colleagues still on trial.

She said: "I am innocent of the crimes that I was charged with and I feel vindicated by the unanimous verdicts."

Rupert Murdoch clutched a copy of The Sun as he left his London home this morning.

ITV News understands the media tycoon is on his way to a staff meeting at News UK, the British newspaper arm of his News Corp company.

Read: Murdoch in London for meeting after hacking trial

Rupert Murdoch has left his central London flat and is believed to be heading to News UK for a meeting with staff, ITV News understands.

The 83-year-old was reading The Sun newspaper as he sat in the front seat of a grey Range Rover.

Murdoch's arrival in the UK follows the acquittal of former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks on phone hacking charges.

Former Metropolitan Police deputy commissioner Brian Paddick has told ITV News "a lot" of people within news organisations "felt they would never be prosecuted" due to their close relationship with the London force.

Lord Paddick, who stood as the Lib Dem candidate for London mayor in 2008 and 2012, said, "When the initial phone-hacking inquiry was going on, senior executives from News International were still having lunches and dinners with senior police officers" .

"A lot of people felt they would never be prosecuted, thankfully that's proved to be wrong", Lord Paddick added.

Neil and Christine Hamilton have told Good Morning Britain they felt "absolute horror" when the couple discovered they had been victims of phone hacking.

However, Mrs Hamilton continued: "What I don't do in any way is to seek to compare our relatively minor situation with the people who are, I think, the real victims - Milly Dowler's parents and people that everybody knows about.

"They must have had the most searing experience".

Watch: Milly Dowler's sister challenges Cameron on hacking

Jeremy Clarkson paid a visit to Rebekah Brooks' London home on Tuesday night after the former News of the World editor was cleared of all charges in the phone hacking trial.

The Top Gear presenter is a friend of Mrs Brooks and her husband Charlie and was one of a number of guests to arrive at the couple's home in west London.

Mr Clarkson and the Brooks' have previously been included along with the Prime Minister in what newspapers have called the 'Chipping Norton Set' - a group of high profile media and political figures based in and around the Oxfordshire town.