Hacking: Lesbian DVD cases in bags at Brooks home

A conker, DVD cases with titles such as Instant Lesbian and Bride of Sin, homeopathic medicine and a 50p piece were among the assorted items found in bags stashed in the car park of Rebekah and Charles Brooks’s London home, the hacking trial heard yesterday.

Rebekah Brooks has denied all the charges against her. Picture: Getty

The court was shown pictures of a brown leather satchel and a black bag which were handed in to police by a building manager after being discovered by a cleaner on 18 July, 2011, the day after Mrs Brooks’s arrest.

The court was told Charles Brooks told staff the two bags had been dropped off for him the night before and there had been some sort of mix-up.

Photographs of the bags and lists of their contents were shown to the jury.

The brown bag contained a phone, a dictaphone, a USB stick, a laptop computer, correspondence, homeopathic medicine, pills, a conker, a brown envelope containing DVD cases and other items, and chequebooks in the name of Charles and Rebekah Brooks.

Titles of the DVDs listed included Instant Lesbian, Bride of Sin, and Lesbian Psychodrama volume 2 and volume 3.

The contents of the black bag included more letters, an Apple laptop with an NI (News International) tag, an iPad, a 50p piece and a blue bag containing a bronze-coloured charm on a chain.

Former NI chief executive Rebekah Brooks, 44, and racehorse trainer Charles Brooks, 50, both of Churchill, Oxfordshire, along with then NI head of security Mark Hanna, 50, of Buckingham, deny conspiring to pervert the course of justice between 15 July and 19 July 2011.

The trial earlier heard Hanna told a worker he had “dug a hole in his garden and burnt stuff”.

The former head of security made the comment to Robert Hernandez over several pints and a bottle of wine in the Dickens pub in St Katherine’s Dock, near the NI plant in east London, on the night before the last edition of the News of the World (NotW) was published in July 2011, the Old Bailey heard.

Mr Hernandez told the court they had discussed Hanna working for Rebekah Brooks 10-15 minutes before talking about the fire at his home.

In the meantime, Hanna had also talked about the closure of the NotW.

When asked if it was papers that he burnt, Mr Hernandez said: “He just looked at me and did not reply and changed the conversation.”

Mr Hernandez, who was working for a security firm at the NI offices, told the court Hanna did not tell him when the incident happened or what it was that he burnt.

“That’s all he said – he dug a hole in the garden and burnt stuff. For all I know, he could have been burning bank statements.”

The jury also heard about hate mail sent to Mrs Brooks and NI staff in the run-up to the closure of the NotW.

One such letter read: “Rotting in hell would be too good punishment for what you have done. The universal law of karma will exact revenge on every single one of you. There is no escape. Have a nice day.”

William Clegg QC, defending Hanna, said blue- or green-ink letters with addresses such as “Fortress Wapping” would usually be picked up in the post­room and gone through by his client, who was in the habit of taking work home with him.

There was laughter when the judge, Mr Justice Saunders, queried: “If you write in blue ink you are presumed to be a nutter? I’m sure you are right.”

He added: “I have only got black or red, so I’m all right now.”

The trial continues.