Ex-News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks’s husband has told a court the couple were “appalled and disgusted” when told murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler’s phone had been hacked.

Charles Brooks told the phone hacking trial that his wife had suffered from “paranoia” about being arrested in a dawn raid and she was desperate to avoid the “killer photograph” of her being led away in handcuffs as he spoke at the Old Bailey.

Mr Brooks said he and his wife met with then News International chairman James Murdoch in July 2011 to discuss a newspaper story alleging the missing teenager’s voicemail messages had been deleted by the News of the World.

He told the court: “The conversation at James Murdoch’s house ranged from ‘this is too awful’ to being ‘this can’t have happened.’
“However there was too much accuracy in what had been said for it to be just a political hit.”