Update | Ex-Cameron aide Andy Coulson gets 18 months’ jail for phone hacking
Former media chief sentenced to 18 months for role in scandal while News of the World editor
Andy Coulson, a former top aide to British Prime Minister David Cameron, was yesterday jailed for 18 months for his role in the phone-hacking scandal that brought down Rupert Murdoch's tabloid.
The sentence passed by a judge at London's Old Bailey court caps a stunning fall from grace for Coulson, the ex-editor of the newspaper, who once enjoyed access to the heights of the British establishment.
Former news editor Greg Miskiw and chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck were each sentenced to six months in jail, while journalist James Weatherup and private detective Glenn Mulcaire each received suspended sentences.
Murdoch shut the tabloid in disgrace in 2011 after it emerged it had become what prosecutors called a "criminal enterprise" that hacked the voicemails of royals, politicians, celebrities and even a murdered schoolgirl.
"Mr Coulson has to take the major shame for the blame of phone hacking at the ," Judge John Saunders said. "He knew about it and he encouraged it when he should have stopped it."
Cameron was forced to make an embarrassing apology after Coulson was convicted on June 24 on one count of conspiring to illegally access voicemails following an eight-month trial. The other four had all pleaded guilty.
Coulson, 46, was editor from 2003 to 2007 and then worked as Cameron's communications chief until his resignation in 2011.
