Phone hacking: MPs challenge prosecutors on evidence in Murdoch case

Exclusive: CPS told Parliament corporate prosecution against News International has not been considered

Rebekah Brooks after her acquittal at the Old Bailey in June (Getty)

Britain's top prosecutor is facing questions about her evidence to Parliament regarding a possible future corporate prosecution of Rupert Murdoch's media empire.

Alison Saunders, Director of Public Prosecutions, was questioned by MPs last week over the long delays at the Crown Prosecution Service and Scotland Yard in deciding whether News International – recently rebranded News UK – should face corporate charges for phone hacking.

During her evidence before the Home Affairs Committee, Ms Saunders was asked about the "torture" and "torment" endured by as many as 30 News International journalists who had been left languishing on bail for as long as two years, with their "careers in ruins".

Keith Vaz, the committee's chair, raised their circumstances with the DPP, before asking: "As far as News International [is] concerned, you wouldn't consider it more appropriate to prosecute the company?"

Ms Saunders replied: "We haven't considered prosecuting the company as yet; that is not a case that has come forward for advice."

The Independent on Sunday can reveal that senior CPS prosecutors have been intimately involved in the potential corporate prosecution of News International for three years.

A file on the possible liability of News International was first passed to the CPS by the police as far back as 2011, with a formal request for legal guidance. Senior officials at the CPS – including Gregor McGill, head of the organised crime division, and Gareth Minty – have been providing "advice" on the company's potential liability since then.

When News International was formally told by police that it was a suspect in the summer of 2012 – following the return of a file to Scotland Yard by the CPS – it is understood that the legal "advice" was that corporate liability lay at "editor level".

In July this year, Andy Coulson, the former editor of News of the World who later worked as director of communications for David Cameron, was jailed for 18 months for a phone-hacking conspiracy involving other journalists at the Sunday tabloid.

However, after 138 days of scrutiny at the Old Bailey, Rebekah Brooks, Coulson's predecessor at the paper, who later became News International's chief executive, was acquitted of phone hacking, authorising payments to public officials, and perverting the course of justice.

Ms Saunders' statement to Parliament last week over the potential corporate charge has aroused questions as, on 30 April 2013, around six months before the trial of the News International editors began, the company was informed of the possibility of "impending corporate liability charges", after the CPS had passed its "advice" on to Scotland Yard.

Mr Vaz told The IoS: "Given this new information, I shall be writing to Alison Saunders to ask her to clarify her evidence … in which she stated that no advice was sought or offered on … corporate prosecutions.

"I will also be writing to the former DPP Keir Starmer to ask him for his recollection on this matter, and to Commander Neil Basu, the head of Operation Weeting."

A senior source close to the investigation said: "Saunders is ill-informed. It's extraordinary that she said that. It's a matter of public record that the CPS's advice was sought on a corporate charge. That is why the police submitted advice files to the CPS early on."

Scotland Yard's investigations into criminality in News International and other British newspapers – widely thought to be the most expensive in British criminal history – have continued for nearly four years.

Operation Weeting was triggered when the company handed over fresh evidence to the Met in January 2011, after maintaining for years that phone hacking within their papers was confined to "one rogue reporter", the former royal editor Clive Goodman.

Former deputy assistant commissioner Sue Akers, who initially led police investigations, told the Leveson inquiry in July and October 2012 that the Met was working "closely" with the CPS which had provided Scotland Yard with "legal advice" on "corporate offences".

Earlier this month, Ms Brooks dropped her application for the taxpayer to reimburse her £7m legal costs, which were indemnified by News International. At a hearing in July, Mr Justice Saunders had warned her: "I have to consider whether any defendant brought it on themselves and also whether I would have to consider News International conduct in relation to the matter."

A CPS spokesperson said: "We have not been passed a charging advice file from the police to consider potential corporate charges against News International.

"The DPP was clear that she was talking about considering prosecution, which can only be done once we have been asked by the police for charging advice. If the police do request charging advice in respect of corporate charges we will, as is normal, confirm that publicly."