An attorney for Andy Coulson, a former editor of News Corp's News of the World tabloid, expressed in court their dismay on how the prosecution presented their evidence against their client in at the UK phone-hacking trial. Bloomberg reported that Coulson and six others, including former lover Rebekah Brooks, are currently on trial for various wrongdoing at the UK newspapers of the New York-based company, which include bribery of public officials and voicemail interception.
Timothy Langdale, who represents Coulson at the trial, said that the prosecution has yet to produce real evidence of wrongdoing against his client. Langdale also stated that the prosecution, as a result, has not carried out a rigorous, open-minded or fair trial.
"There must be no thought that somebody high up in the organization, that someone has to pay for phone hacking. Why are there no e-mails questioning hacking or sanctioning hacking? The prosecution have failed to call before you a single witness to testify that Andy Coulson was involved in phone hacking who does not have an agenda of their own," the attorney told the jury today during his case summary in London.
In his argument, Langdale questioned the credibility of two former News of the World reporters who had given their testimonies against Coulson. According to Langdale, Clive Goodman and Dan Evans, who earlier had submitted guilty pleas in separate cases of phone hacking, were terribly unreliable to be called witnesses.
Bloomberg said Goodman is among the other defendants of the case. Evans told the court that Coulson had knowledge about phone hacking during his tenure as editor at the British weekly tabloid.
Coulson resigned from his post at News of the World in 2007, which coincidentally is the same day Goodman and a private investigator at the tabloid had been handed out prison sentences on phone hacking charges. News of the World had been closed by company Chairman Rupert Murdoch in 2011 following public outcry over the tabloid's intervention of voicemail messages of a murdered schoolgirl.
