LONDON — David Cameron's former media chief Andy Coulson will be charged with conspiring to pay officials for private information on the royal family during his time as a tabloid editor, prosecutors said Tuesday. The prosecutor's decision is a blow to the reputation of the British prime minister who has been forced to defend his hiring of Coulson since a phone-hacking scandal exploded last year at the Rupert Murdoch-owned News of the World tabloid. Critics say that Eton-educated Cameron - who meets Queen Elizabeth once a week - ignored warnings about Coulson's reputation to appoint him to shape his media strategy to connect better with ordinary voters. Since resigning in 2011, Coulson has been charged with conspiracy to hack into phone messages and perjury, possible first steps to what would be politically charged court cases. He said in a statement he would fight the latest charges in court. Another Cameron friend, the former boss of Murdoch's British newspaper business, Rebekah Brooks, was also told on Tuesday that she would be charged with conspiring to authorize payments of around 100,000 pounds ($160,100) to a member of the Ministry of Defense to generate stories. Lawyers for Brooks were not immediately available to comment but she has previously denied any wrongdoing. “These individuals will appear before Westminster Magistrates' Court on a date to be determined,” said public prosecutor Alison Levitt. Brooks, a former Sun and News of the World editor, has already been charged with conspiring to hack into phones and with attempts to pervert the course of justice. Instantly recognizable for her long, curly red hair, Brooks had previously been courted by prime ministers from Tony Blair to Cameron. The string of charges have marked the fall from grace for two of Britain's most connected media executives, and have embarrassed both Cameron and their boss Murdoch. “This is a man (Cameron) with a red face over Coulson that is now turning from crimson to scarlet,” Roy Greenslade, author of several books on the British press and a former senior editor at the Sun, told Reuters. The new charges stem from a wider probe into the British press that was sparked by revelations that journalists at the News of the World had hacked into phone messages on an industrial scale. — Reuters
