Scandal hit UK tabloid axed as arrest expected

LONDON — Former News of the World editor Andy Coulson was convicted of phone hacking Tuesday, but fellow editor Rebekah Brooks was acquitted after a monthslong trial centring on illegal activity at the heart of Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper empire. A jury at London’s Old Bailey unanimously found Coulson, the former spin doctor of British Prime Minister David Cameron, guilty of conspiring to intercept communications. Brooks was acquitted of that charge and of counts of bribing officials and obstructing police.

LONDON — A top counterterrorism detective was found guilty Thursday of trying to sell information to a Rupert Murdoch tabloid, becoming the first person to be convicted on charges related to Britain’s phone-hacking scandal since a police investigation was reopened in early 2011. Detective Chief Inspector April Casburn was charged with misconduct for phoning the News of the World and offering to pass on information about whether London’s police force would reopen its stalled phone-hacking investigation.

LONDON — Jurors at Britain’s phone-hacking trial were told Wednesday that former prime minister Tony Blair allegedly offered to work as an unofficial adviser to Rupert Murdoch as revelations of illegal phone hacking engulfed the mogul’s media empire. Prosecutor Andrew Edis read aloud an email sent by Rebekah Brooks, then head of Murdoch’s British newspapers, to Murdoch’s son and deputy James on July 11, 2011. In it, Brooks says she’s asked Blair for advice and been told: “It will pass. Tough up.”