The high-profile trial of Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of the Rupert Murdoch-owned News International, will begin on September 9 over charges relating to Britain's phone-hacking scandal, a court ruled today.
Brooks, a former editor of the Sunday tabloid and the Sun newspaper, will be tried at the Old Bailey alongside eight other defendants including Andy Coulson, the former director of communications at Downing Street and ex-editor of the News of the World who is facing one charge in relation to alleged phone-hacking.
The trial will start on September 9, said Justice Saunders at Southwark crown court in a pre-trial and case management hearing.
45-year-old Coulson pleaded not guilty to this charge yesterday.
On Wednesday Brooks, 45, pleaded not guilty to all five charges she is facing which include one general accusation that she conspired with others to hack phones, two charges relating to making inappropriate payments to public officials for stories and two charges alleging she conspired with others to conceal material including computers and documents from police investigating the phone-hacking scandal in July 2011.
Also to stand trial with Brooks in September are her husband, Charlie Brooks, the race horse trainer and friend of Prime Minister David Cameron and two others who worked with her around the time of the closure of the Sunday tabloid, her former secretary Cheryl Carter and the News International head of security Mark Hanna.
They face separate charges alleging they conspired to pervert the course of justice and all pleaded not guilty in a hearing earlier this week, The Guardian newspaper reported.
The other defendants who will be tried in September are the former News of the World managing editor Stuart Kuttner, former head of news Ian Edmondson and senior reporter James Weatherup.
They have all pleaded not guilty to a single charge in relation to allegations of phone-hacking.
It was decided at Southwark that Glenn Mulcaire, who is facing a separate charge relating to the hacking of Milly Dowler's phone, which he denies, will also be tried in September.
In a separate development, a woman working for the Metropolitan police division handling 999 calls and dispatching officers to incidents became the 67th arrest arising from the investigation into alleged illegal payments to public officials by journalists.
The 38-year-old woman, a member of police staff in the Metropolitan's Central Communications Command, was arrested at her home in Essex at about 6am today and was being interviewed at an east London police station.
