Rebekah Brooks

Rebekah Mary Brooks (born 27 May 1968) is a British media executive and former journalist and newspaper editor.

Rebekah Mary Wade was born in 1968 in Warrington.

She grew up in Daresbury, where her parents ran a tree pruning business.

Brooks joined the Sunday newspaper News of the World in 1989 as a secretary, before working as a feature writer for its magazine, eventually becoming the paper's deputy editor.

In 1994, she prepared for the News of the World's interview with James Hewitt, a lover of Diana, Princess of Wales, by reserving a hotel suite and hiring a team to "kit it out with secret tape devices in various flowerpots and cupboards", Piers Morgan, her former boss, wrote in his memoir The Insider, The New York Times relayed in July 2011.

Her father, John Robert Wade, died aged 50 in 1996.

When she was 14, she decided she wanted to be a journalist and would make tea at her local newspaper and help out generally.

She attended Appleton Hall High School – a state comprehensive school that had previously been a grammar school – in Appleton, Warrington.

A childhood friend, Louise Weir, described her as "more emotionally intelligent than academic", charming and always able to get what she wanted out of people.

In Brooks's entry in Who's Who, she stated that she had studied at the Sorbonne in Paris, but did not claim to have a degree, and did not later answer questions about this.

In 1998, she transferred to the News of the World's daily counterpart, The Sun, for a short time.

Brooks was a prominent figure in the News International phone hacking scandal, having been the editor of News of the World from 2000 to 2003 when one of the stories which involved illegal phone hacking was published by the newspaper.

She then returned to the News of the World in 2000 as editor; at the time, she was the youngest editor of a national British newspaper.

While at the News of the World, Brooks oversaw its campaign of "naming and shaming" individuals suspected to be convicted child sex offenders — a campaign launched in the wake of the murder of Sarah Payne, while hacking Payne's mother's voicemail.

The paper's decision led to angry mobs terrorising those they suspected of being child sex offenders, which included several cases of mistaken identity and one instance where a paediatrician had her house vandalised, apparently by people who thought her occupation meant she was a paedophile.

The campaign was described as "grossly irresponsible" journalism by the Chief Constable of Gloucestershire, Tony Butler,

name="BBCprofile1" /> but Brooks defended the paper's actions on the BBC's Breakfast with Frost, claiming that it was "only right that the public have controlled access" to information on sex offenders.

The paper's already strong sales held up well under her leadership, while those of rival Sunday newspapers The People and the Sunday Mirror fell more sharply.

Brooks married actor Ross Kemp in 2002.

In a 2003 Spectator article, Stephen Glover suggested that, since she was working at the age of 20 for the News of the World, "we can safely assume that she did not study at the Sorbonne in any meaningful way".

In January 2003, she returned to The Sun, replacing her former boss David Yelland, to become its first female editor.

On Brooks's first day as editor, the Page 3 girl was Rebekah Parmar-Teasdale – the caption to the picture was "Rebekah from Wapping".

Soon after becoming editor, Brooks ran the headline "Bonkers Bruno Locked Up" concerning the mental health problems of former heavyweight boxing champion Frank Bruno.

The next day The Sun ran a 600-word reply from the head of the mental health charity SANE and since then has adopted a style guide on covering mental health stories prepared by the same charity.

Brooks and her husband spent a day with the head of SANE and made donations to the charity.

On her appointment as editor of The Sun, she said, "It's the best job in newspapers."

It was said of her by David Yelland, a former editor of The Sun, "She's good at schmoozing showbusiness people. She can turn people over and have dinner with them the next day".

During a March 2003 appearance before the House of Commons Select committee on Culture, Media and Sport as part of an inquiry into privacy issues, Brooks stated that her newspaper had paid police for information.

She was previously CEO of News International from 2009 to 2011 and was the youngest editor of a British national newspaper at News of the World, from 2000 to 2003, and the first female editor of The Sun, from 2003 to 2009.

They divorced in 2009 and she married former racehorse trainer and author Charlie Brooks.

In 2010, Brooks was awarded an honorary Fellowship from the University of the Arts, London, for contributions to journalism.

She briefly attended the London College of Communication, now part of the university, as a student but did not graduate.

The commentator Henry Porter claims little is known of Brooks personally.

Tim Minogue, who was one of her first co-editors before becoming a journalist at Private Eye magazine, recalled a "likeable, skinny, hollow-eyed girl who was very ambitious".

After school, she worked for the French magazine L'architecture d'aujourd'hui in Paris, before returning to Britain to work for Eddy Shah's Messenger Group.

Graham Ball, the then features editor at The Post newspaper, recalled that she was a notably astute and intelligent staff member.

When The Post was disbanded, Brooks then moved to the News of the World.

Following a criminal trial in 2014 she was found not guilty of conspiracy to hack voicemails, two counts of conspiracy to pay public officials and two counts of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice by a jury at the Old Bailey.

She has been chief executive officer of News UK since 2015.

In September 2015, Brooks was confirmed as CEO of News UK, the renamed News International, re-establishing a working relationship with Rupert Murdoch, founder and chairman of News Corp, and founder and executive chairman of American conservative cable news channel Fox News.