Rebekah Brooks pleads not guilty to phone hacking-related charges

Former News International chief Rebekah Brooks has pleaded not guilty to conspiring into phone hacking, pervert course of justice and unlawfully pay officials.

Brooks pleaded not guilty to the series of criminal charges over a nine-year period when she edited the News of the World and the Sun, and latterly ran the newspaper publisher.

According to the Guardian, she pleaded not guilty to five charges relating to three separate police investigations on Wednesday at Southwark crown court.

She had appeared for the hearing along with a number of other defendants, including her husband, Charlie Brooks, the racehorse trainer and friend of David Cameron.

Brooks pleaded not guilty to one charge relating to an alleged conspiracy to hack phones between October 2000 and August 2006 and not guilty to two further charges relating to an alleged conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office by paying public officials money for stories, the report said.

She also pleaded not guilty to two further charges connected to allegations that she conspired to pervert the course of justice after she was arrested in July 2011 in relation to alleged phone hacking, the report added.