Hacking Trial: Coulson Email Said 'Do His Phone'

A jury has heard that former News of the World editor Andy Coulson sent an email telling a journalist to "do the phone" of a celebrity.

Coulson gave the instruction to head of news Ian Edmondson after fears that Calum Best would leak his story to a rival newspaper in 2006.

The NOTW had been chasing a story on a woman who was due to give birth to the celebrity's child. She had planned to sell her story to the newspapers.

Prosecutors said this amounted to Coulson tasking Edmondson and others to hack the phone of Best.

Other alleged targets of the phone hacking included former home secretary Charles Clarke, actors Jude Law and Sienna Miller, and former aide to Prince William and Prince Harry, Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, the jury heard.

The list also included Lord Archer, cook Delia Smith, and model Abi Titmuss.

Prosecutors said Prince Harry and Calum Best were phone hacking victims

Prosecutors claim journalists at the NOTW used phone hacking as a "perfectly rational but entirely illegal" way of checking stories they had received tip-offs on.

A jury was also shown an email from the paper's former royal editor Clive Goodman to Coulson detailing payments to palace police.

Sky's Mark White said according to the prosecution, the 2003 email is an admission that the pair had been involved in criminality by paying police officers for information regarding the royal family.

A redacted version of the email by Goodman said: "Andy, one of our royal at policemen at St James's Palace has obtained the brand new green book, the telephone directory with all the home numbers of the royal family and their household staff. Incredibly useful.

"The standard price is £1,000. So far, so good, but I had a heck of a time getting cash credits signed off by Stuart (Kuttner) earlier this week to pay a Kensington Palace copper.

"I'm not criticising Stuart at all but these people will not be paid in anything other than cash because if they're discovered selling stuff to us they end up on criminal charges, as could we."

Defendants Stuart Kuttner and Clive Goodman

Coulson replied questioning why he had recently signed off on a payment of £750 for another copy of the directory.

Goodman answered: "This is the harder to get one which has the Queen's direct lines to her family in it."

Goodman, managing editor Kuttner, Edmondson and Coulson are one of eight defendants on trial for phone hacking at the Old Bailey along with former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks.

The jury also heard that phone hacking uncovered a claim that Prince Harry had broken rules at military training academy Sandhurst by asking an aide for help with an essay.

Mr Edis said the NOWT story came from a voicemail that was illegally accessed by private investigator Glenn Mulcaire on behalf of Goodman. It is claimed Coulson also knew what was happening.

Mr Edis said the story, which ran under the headline, "Harry's aide helps out on Sandhurst exams", had "got into the paper and was based entirely on a voicemail".

After Coulson stopped weekly payments to Mulcaire in February 2006, Goodman emailed Coulson asking him to keep them going.

The royal editor said he was a valuable source of stories on the royal family, especially after Prince William started at Sandhurst.

He wrote: "We are the only paper getting any information out of there at all about his movements and Kate's."

Jurors were also told that a top aide to the Prince of Wales was targeted by NOTW journalists, chasing false rumours that the Prince Charles' private secretary Sir Michael Peat had been having an affair.

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