Phone-Hacking Trial: Andy Coulson And Clive Goodman To Face Retrial On Bribery Charges

Andy Coulson and Clive Goodman, senior editors from the now-defunct News of the World, will be facing a retrial on charges stemming from the phone-hacking scandal that forced the closure of the British tabloid, media reports said, citing prosecutors.

The retrial was announced Monday at the beginning of a sentencing hearing for former editor Coulson, who was convicted of conspiracy to hack phones to generate scoops for the Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid. On Wednesday, London's Old Bailey court failed to reach a verdict on two counts of bribery each against Coulson, who was later Prime Minister David Cameron's communications director, and Goodman, the former royals editor who in 2006 pleaded guilty to earlier phone-hacking charges.

Coulson and Goodman were accused of bribing police in charge of the royal family's security to obtain royal telephone directories. Coulson’s lawyers will reportedly present “mitigation arguments” in court this week, while the sentencing on hacking charges, which could extend up to two years in prison, is due Friday.

Four other former employees of the News of the World tabloid will also be sentenced along with Coulson, while Rebekah Brooks, the former chief of the tabloid’s UK division, was cleared of all charges after a prolonged trial.

In May, Goodman, who was jailed in 2007 for illegally accessing voicemails on the mobile phones of royal aides, said that he had hacked the phone of Kate Middleton, before she became the Duchess of Cambridge, nearly 155 times between 2000 and 2006 in search of stories.

In a March 2014 trial, Goodman admitted to the Old Bailey that Princess Diana gave him a book of royal directories in 1992, in order to "take on" her husband, Prince Charles, but denied taking the directories from officials or paying for them, at the time. Police had reportedly seized 15 such directories from Goodman’s home when he was arrested in 2006.