British Prosecutors Consider Charges in Phone Hacking Case

The wide-ranging police inquiry into phone hacking and other wrongdoing at Rupert Murdoch’s tabloid newspapers moved a step closer to possible criminal prosecutions when Scotland Yard sent four files on 11 unidentified people, including 4 journalists and a police officer, to the Crown Prosecution Service.

There also appeared to be an intensification of interest in the case of Rebekah Brooks, the former chief of Mr. Murdoch’s British newspaper operations, and her husband, Charlie Brooks, an Eton-educated racehorse trainer. Keir Starmer, the director of public prosecutions, told reporters that the two had been made the subject of a separate police inquiry, Operation Sacha, on suspicion of trying to pervert the course of justice. They were arrested last month. Under Britain’s judicial system, criminal charges are drawn up by the Crown Prosecution Service on the basis of evidence gathered by the police. A spokeswoman for the service said that the names of those now being considered for prosecution would not be released, and that the service could not say when it would decide whether to prosecute those involved.