Crown prosecutors and court staff face a logistical nightmare in trying Rebekah Brooks, Andy Coulson and the six others charged over the News of the World phone hacking scandal, experts said today.
The case, based on a 19-month police investigation, is so complex it is unlikely to come to trial before autumn next year.
Seven journalists including ex-editor Mrs Brooks and the former No 10 spin doctor and ex-NoW editor Mr Coulson were charged with conspiracy to hack the phones of public figures.
Among more than 600 alleged victims are murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler and Hollywood stars Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.
They are the first charges for phone hacking to be brought since 2006 when the paper’s royal editor, Clive Goodman, was prosecuted for targeting the phones of three royal aides.
The others facing phone-hacking related charges are ex-NoW employees Stuart Kuttner, Greg Miskiw, Ian Edmondson, Neville Thurlbeck and James Weatherup, and Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator for the paper.
The total of 19 charges is not an unusually high number for a single jury to consider. But the breadth of the evidence involving eight defendants — possibly even more if others are charged — and so many alleged victims will pose problems.
A senior barrister with knowledge of the allegations said: “How are they going to do it? Will they try and shoehorn eight people into a single dock or will they separate the victims into different trials?”
Lawyers for Mrs Brooks, the former News International chief executive, and others charged with perverting the course of justice want their trial to take place after the phone-hacking case.
If there are to be separate trials of the eight defendants their lawyers will press for a blackout on reporting until the start of the last trial.
In the days of Twitter, social networking sites and internet blogging that may prove to be impossible to enforce and lead to fears that the defendants cannot get a fair trial.
