Charges brought over phone hacking

Brad Pitt and Angeline Jolie among alleged victims.

by Jennie Kermode

Eight people, including former News Of The World editor Rebekah Brooks and David Cameron's former press secretary Andy Coulson, today faced charges over the phone hacking scandal. Seven of them have been charged with charged with conspiring to intercept communications without lawful authority. On the list of those whose private phone messages were allegedly intercepted by some of those charged are Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Sadie Frost and Paul McCartney.

Despite previous financial settlememts that brought an end to civil cases, charges will also be brought in relation to alleged hacking of the phones of Sienna Miller and Jude Law. "No aspect of my private life was safe from the News Of The World," Law has previously claimed.

The charges concerning the hacking of Pitt and Jolie's phones are believed to relate to stories in the News Of The World in 2005 which speculated on the reasons for Pitt's break-up with his then spouse Jennifer Aniston.

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