Rebekah and Charlie Brooks arrest: one minute they were off racing, the next they were under arrest

Charlie Brooks should have been spending Tuesday at Cheltenham Festival with his wife Rebekah enjoying “the happiest moment of my year”, as the racehorse trainer described it.

Mr Brooks and his wife were being interviewed at separate police stations after being arrested by officers investigating phone hacking at the News of the World 

In his racing column in The Daily Telegraph on Monday, Mr Brooks purred at the prospect of his first pint of Guinness, which he planned to drink three hours before the meeting began.

“At that moment, I think to myself every year; I’m here, I’m alive and I’ve got a full pint in my hand,” he wrote.

But instead of propping up the bar at one of the five pubs he intended to visit, Mr Brooks and his wife were being interviewed at separate police stations after being arrested by officers investigating phone hacking at the News of the World.

For Mrs Brooks, a former editor of the Sunday tabloid, it was a familiar experience; she was held last year and questioned about both phone hacking and corrupt payments to public officials.

Mr Brooks, an old Etonian friend of David Cameron, was arrested for the first time after he found himself being dragged into the scandal following his alleged involvement in a bizarre episode involving a laptop found in a dustbin.

• Mr and Mrs Brooks, and four others, were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, an offence that carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. The arrests coincided with police starting a new phase in the investigation.

A senior security man at News International was understood to be among those held yesterday, after victims of phone hacking obtained evidence of the systematic deletion of compromising emails and the destruction of computers used by News of the World staff.

Mr and Mrs Brooks were at their home in the Cotswolds, expecting to head off to Cheltenham when they were arrested between 5am and 7am.

In January the couple became parents of a surrogate daughter, Scarlett Anne Mary Brooks, who was born at the Portland private hospital in central London.

They could have been forgiven for thinking they would be spending a few days relaxing, especially after the recent “horsegate” disclosure that Scotland Yard lent a retired police horse to Mrs Brooks, which David Cameron had ridden.

Instead, they both found themselves under arrest for an offence that could potentially have far worse implications than the phone hacking which allegedly took place on Mrs Brooks’s watch.

Mr Brooks, 49, was not even married to the former News of the World editor at the time the hacking was allegedly going on, but he came to the attention of police when his laptop was handed in to police the day after his wife’s arrest last July.

Officers from Operation Weeting, the investigation into phone-hacking, and Operation Elveden, the investigation into illicit payments to public officials, had spent nine hours questioning Mrs Brooks on July 17, two days after she resigned as chief executive of News International. She has been on bail since.

The following day a laptop computer and an iPad belonging to Mr Brooks were handed in to police by a security guard at the Design Centre apartment complex in Chelsea Harbour, west London, where Mr and Mrs Brooks have a £1.5  million flat.

A bag containing the computers, a phone and some paperwork had been found in an underground car park by a cleaner and dumped in a bin, where it was found by the security guard.

Mr Brooks said at the time that his briefcase had been dropped off and “there was a misunderstanding about collecting them by a mate”.

He told The Daily Telegraph he was “glued to Sky News” at the time, and that the briefcase “ended up with the trash”.

He added in an email that it was “all my personal info, nothing to do with my wife or search warrant”.

He said he had contacted the police when he realised the bag was missing, and that they confirmed the items had been handed in.

Mr Brooks was taken to a police station in Buckinghamshire yesterday while his 43-year-old wife was taken to a police station in Oxfordshire.

She is likely to have been questioned over disclosures in recent weeks about the deletion of emails and the destruction of computers used by News of the World reporters, which emerged during High Court hearings at which dozens of hacking victims accepted damages from the publisher of the defunct newspaper.

Mrs Brooks was editor of the tabloid from 2000-2003, then served as editor of The Sun until Sep 2009, when she became chief executive of News International.

Last month The Daily Telegraph disclosed that executives at News Group Newspapers had formulated an “email deletion policy” in November 2009 to “eliminate in a consistent manner” emails that could cause trouble.

Staff were told to destroy emails that “could be unhelpful in the context of future litigation in which a News International company is a defendant”.

Papers released by a High Court judge showed that hundreds of thousands of emails were deleted “on nine separate occasions”. One senior executive told a member of staff to remove seven boxes of paper records from the company’s storage facility, it emerged.

Lawyers for some of the hacking victims told the High Court at a separate hearing that computers used by News of the World journalists implicated in the hacking scandal were destroyed in 2010 as part of a “conspiracy” to cover up the extent of phone hacking and the identities of those who knew about it.

Mr Justice Vos, who is presiding over the hacking cases, said he had seen evidence that raised compelling questions about whether News Group “concealed, told lies, actively tried to get off scot free”.

Four men, aged 39, 46, 38 and 48 were arrested in co-ordinated raids in Hampshire, Hertfordshire and London, taking the total number of arrests under Operation Weeting to 29.

A spokesman for Mrs Brooks declined to comment.

Deputy mayor Kit Malthouse questioned hacking investigation

Boris Johnson’s right hand man questioned Scotland Yard decision to re-open the phone hacking investigation, describing it as “political and media-driven hysteria”, the Leveson inquiry has heard.

Kit Malthouse, London's deputy Mayor  

Kit Malthouse, London’s deputy mayor, questioned Sir Paul Stephenson, the then commissioner, over the level of resources the force was devoting to the inquiry “on several occasions”.

Last night Labour MP Chris Bryant, who is suing the Metropolitan Police over allegations that he was not notified that his phone was hacked by the News of the World, called for Mr Malthouse to step down from his position.

The investigation was re-opened in January 2011 following a series of claims in civil cases that phone hacking at the News of the World went wider than one “rogue reporter”.

Operation Weeting was launched while Sir Paul was on sick leave. He did not return until April 2011 when more than 40 officers were devoted to the inquiry.

Sir Paul told the Leveson inquiry that the decision to allocate significant resources to the investigation was questioned by Mr Malthouse who was then chair of the Metropolitan :Police Authority.

He said: “On several occasions after Operation Weeting had started and I had returned from sick leave, the Chair of the MPA, Kit Malthouse, expressed a view that we should not be devoting this level of resources to the phone hacking inquiry as a consequence of a largely political and media-driven “level of hysteria”.

“Whilst understanding his desire to maximise the resources devoted to current issues of crime and public safety, I pointed out that the disclosure requirements arising from the civil cases left us with little choice but to invest significant resources in servicing this matter.”

Previously Boris Johnson, the London Mayor, had described the phone hacking scandal as “a load of old codswallop cooked up by the Labour party”.

Last night Mr Bryant said that Sir Paul’s evidence “makes it clear that from the highest political level Johnson and Malthouse have intentionally sought to close down the phone-hacking investigation.

“This amounts to a clear political intervention designed to intimidate the Met into dropping an investigation.”

A spokesman for Mr Malthouse was unavailable for comment.

Sir Paul was the first of four former commissioners scheduled to give evidence to the inquiry this week.

He was questioned about his relationship with Neil Wallis, the former deputy editor of the News of the World, with whom he had six meetings between 2008 and 2010.

Sir Paul said that he would not describe the pair as “friends” but accepted that some of the meetings were private and that he had paid personally for drinks or a meal.

Mr Wallis went on to work for Scotland Yard before being arrested in Operation Weeting last year.

In Sir Paul’s witness statement he defended the force’s decision to hire Mr Wallis pointing out that Andy Coulson, who resigned as editor of the News of the World over the phone hacking scandal, had been employed by David Cameron.

He said: “The man who did resign and who had been Mr Wallis’ senior - Andy Coulson – had subsequently been re-employed advising at the highest levels of government.

“Therefore, having played no part in engaging Mr Wallis, I was aware of no issues that could reasonably raise any level of suspicion or concern.”

Sir Paul’s evidence also addressed concerns that the force had failed when they decided not to re-open the phone hacking investigation amid concerns aired by the Guardian and the New York Times in 2009 and 2010.

Sir Paul tasked the then assistant commissioner John Yates to consider whether they should re-open the case. But yesterday Lord Justice Leveson described the force’s review as a “back of the envelope job”

Sir Paul admitted he had not read the 2009 Guardian article but he said he was “satisfied” with Mr Yates’s decisions, adding that he was “only as good as the briefings” he was given. He later admitted that the force had adopted a "defensive mindset" and should have been more "challenging" towards the claims that the original investigation had failed.

The former commissioner also spoke about allegations that senior Scotland Yard officers were too close to the media.

He admitted that a “small number” of senior officers were “leaking and gossiping” to the media during his time as deputy commissioner and were closer to the press “than I considered necessary”.

Horsegate: Downing Street denies 12 month 'cover-up'

A former aide to David Cameron has been accused of attempting to cover up the Prime Minister's links with former News International boss Rebekah Brooks more than a year ago.

The Prime Minister was last week forced to admit that he had ridden a horse loaned to Mrs Brooks by the Metropolitan police with her huband.

But the Mail on Sunday said that it had first asked Andy Coulson, former editor of The Sun and former head of communications at Downing Street, about rumours that Mr Cameron went riding with Charlie Brooks, a racing trainer and Telegraph columnist, in late 2010.

It said Mr Brooks, an old friend from Mr Cameron’s Eton school days, had been giving Mr Cameron tips at riding with a hunt. But Mr Coulson categorically denied that the Prime Minister had ever ridden with Charlie Brooks.

The newspaper reported that he stated that "Mr Cameron had not had lessons from Mr Brooks and had not been riding with him”.

Last week Mr Cameron was forced to admit after days of questioning from The Daily Telegraph that he had indeed gone riding with Mr Brooks, on a retired police horse called Raisa which had been loaned to Rebekah Brooks by the Metropolitan Police.

He told a press conference after a European summit: “Before the election I did go riding with him. He has a number of different horses and yes one of them was this police horse Raisa, which I did ride.”

Last night, Mr Cameron’s aides attempted to distance themselves from any suggestion that they had tried to conceal the fact Mr Cameron went riding with Mr Brooks.

One aide said: “I am absolutely certain we would not have given a categorical denial to something that was true. We would not have denied something that is true. I don’t know how that situation came about.”

The aide said Mr Cameron rode with Mr Brooks on a “handful of occasions” although Mrs Brooks spokesman said the pair had ridden together “many times”.

Downing Street also said Mr Cameron had not ridden with hounds in an official hunt since the nation-wide ban was introduced in February 2005. The aide said: "He has not taken part in hunting since that time."

It emerged last week that Mr Cameron rode Raisa several times, while Mrs Brooks, rode her only once because of the horse’s difficult temperament.

There was some respite for Mr Cameron on Sunday when Mrs Brooks insisted that she had never ridden with Mr Cameron. The Prime Minister has insisted since last Thursday that he could not recall riding with Mrs Brooks.

David Wilson, Mrs Brooks; spokesman, said: “They have never ridden together. She is unequivocal – she has never ridden with David Cameron.”

Mr Wilson said: Raisa was “wasn’t suitable for a novice rider” because she was traumatised during a 13 spell in the Met’s riot squad.

He added: “Charlie could ride it but Rebekah couldn’t. It was apparent on the first day she tried to ride it. She did not take on the horse to ride it but as a charitable deed to assist the Met.

They were looking to home a horse that would otherwise have ended up in the knackers’ yard.” Mr Coulson did not return telephone calls on Sunday. Mr Coulson was unavailable to comment.

David Cameron 'likely' to have ridden Rebekah Brooks’ ex-police horse, Number 10 says

David Cameron is "likely" to have ridden Rebekah Brooks’ ex-police horse, it has emerged

David Cameron is likely to be questioned about his friendship with Mrs Brooks by Lord Justice Leveson as part of his inquiry into press ethics 

The disclosure raises questions about the closeness between the Prime Minister and Mrs Brooks, the former tabloid editor who quit as chief executive of News International at the height of the phone hacking scandal last summer.

Mrs Brooks was lent a retired police horse by the Metropolitan Police for two years. The horse, called Raisa, was stabled at Mrs Brooks' farm in the Cotswolds from 2008 to 2010, before she was handed back to Scotland Yard.

After three days of refusing to say whether Mr Cameron had ridden the horse, aides last night disclosed that in all probability he did, although he could not be sure as he rode several of Mr Brooks’ horses.

One of the Prime Minister’s aides said: “It is highly possible that he was on that horse. It is likely that he rode that horse. He used a number of Charlie’s horses.”

She also confirmed that it was possible Mr Cameron had also gone riding with Mrs Brooks, because he could not be “100 per cent sure”. The aide said: “He has no recollection of ever going riding with Rebekah Brooks.”

Mr Cameron also admitted that he had been riding with Mr Brooks, a neighbour and former school friend from Eton public school, who is also a columnist on The Sunday Telegraph.

He told Channel 5 News: “It’s a matter of record that I have ridden horses with Rebekah Brooks’ husband in my constituency. Since becoming Prime Minister, I may have got on a horse once, but not that one.”

The Daily Telegraph has established that the horse was lent to Mrs Brooks in 2008 following discussions with Dick Fedorcio, the Met Police’s director of public affairs.

Raisa was returned to the care of Scotland Yard in early 2010, before the general election, and put out to pasture in Norfolk. She died a few months later.

Last night Labour MP Tom Watson said Raisa threatened to symbolise the cosy friendship between the key players embroiled in the phone hacking scandal.

He told The Daily Telegraph: “This horse is becoming the symbol of this scandal. It shows how powerful media players and politicians got too close.”