Rebekah Brooks is innocent...

[Essex Lad]

Repealed by Mr Blair for "serious crimes", effective 2005.

Following the murder of Stephen Lawrence, the Macpherson Report recommended that the double jeopardy rule should be abrogated in murder cases, and that it should be possible to subject an acquitted murder suspect to a second trial if "fresh and viable" new evidence later came to light. The Law Commission later added its support to this in its report "Double Jeopardy and Prosecution Appeals" (2001).

Both the Home Office resident Jack Straw and Leader of the Opposition William Hague favoured this measure. These recommendations were implemented?not uncontroversially at the time?within the Criminal Justice Act 2003, and this provision came into force in April 2005.It opened certain serious crimes (including murder, manslaughter, kidnapping, rape, armed robbery, and serious drug crimes) to a retrial, regardless of when committed, with two conditions: the retrial must be approved by the Director of Public Prosecutions, and the Court of Appeal must agree to quash the original acquittal due to "new and compelling evidence".

Nothing about phone hacking, I'm afraid.

[Essex Lad]

What I find truly astounding is how so many so-called sophisticated people (I exclude the jury but include the lawyers of Leveson) have so little idea about how newspapers actually work.

There is no way that she did not know how stories were obtained.

If the Mirror investigation goes ahead, it will be interesting to see how they explain getting the Sven-Ulrika story...

[max_tranmere]

I thumbed through The Sun today (Wednesday) in WH Smiths and it is incredible just how much they're praising Rebekah Brooks in their columns and editorial and implying she is as innocent as one of us would be if we were hauled in and charged with what she's been charged with. Like she is Miss Perfect and they DEFINATELY got the wrong person. It is astonishing they're doing this in their paper, but perhaps not surprising. No mention in their columns and editorial about the Dowler family or Andy Coulson. They are truly a gutter, and very biased rag. I also saw on the news just now that Rebekah Brooks has been paid ?16 million as a golden-goodbye. Truly incredible!

[Essex Lad]

Every newspaper is biased. According to Paul Staines, loud cheers went up in The Guardian newsroom when it was announced verdicts had been reached and then deafening silence when they heard what they actually were...

[steve56]

I reckon RB and her hubby bunged them a few quid to get off