Alison Levitt QC announces who is to be charged in Operation Weeting, the police investigation into phone hacking ITN

The prime minister's former director of communications and Rupert Murdoch's closest confidante in London have been charged with conspiring to hack the phones of more than 600 people, including the murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler and 7/7 victim John Tulloch, over a period of up to six years.

Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks, who both edited the News of the World, were among eight people charged with 19 counts of conspiracy over the phone hacking scandal, with prosecutors alleging that the tabloid also targeted Labour cabinet ministers and celebrities – including at least one person associated with the Hollywood power couple Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

The eight, all employed by Murdoch's now defunct News of the World, are the first people to be charged since the Metropolitan police reopened the phone hacking probe 18 months ago – following a series of articles by the Guardian in 2009 and 2010 and by other media organisations which suggested that the practice of intercepting voicemails went wider than had been thought.

Other victims of the alleged hacking include the former deputy prime minister John Prescott, two former home secretaries, David Blunkett and Charles Clarke, and the former culture secretary Tessa Jowell. Sven-Goran Eriksson, Wayne Rooney, Delia Smith, Sienna Miller and Calum Best were also targeted, as well as Prof Tulloch, who was left bloody and burnt after the worst ever terrorist attacks on the UK mainland in July 2005, the CPS said.

Announcing the decision at 11am via a televised press statement, and coinciding with the last day of hearings at the Leveson inquiry, Alison Levitt QC, principal legal adviser to the director of public prosecutions, said she had determined that "a prosecution is required in the public interest in relation to each of these eight suspects" after satisfying herself that "there is sufficient evidence for there to be a realistic prospect of conviction".

Coulson was charged on five counts of conspiring unlawfully to intercept communications, with specific charges relating to the hacking of phones to listen to voicemails relating to the Milly Dowler, Blunkett, Clarke and Best. He was also charged – alongside six of the remaining seven – with conspiring to hack phones between 2000 and 2006, targeting communications of over 600 people.

The maximum penalty for each charge is two years imprisonment, or a fine, or both – and it is at the judge's discretion whether any sentences would be served concurrently.

Coulson left the editorship of the News of the World in January 2007 after a journalist and private investigator were convicted of phone hacking. A few months later he was appointed as director of communications for the Conservative party, and followed David Cameron into Downing Street after the 2010 election. The prime minister repeatedly said that Coulson deserved a "second chance", as one of the prime minister's most senior advisers, before Coulson was forced to quit his No 10 role on the grounds that the controversy over phone hacking was distracting him from his job.

Coulson gave a short statement outside his south London home, saying he would "fight these allegations", and added that he never had done anything to harm the Milly Dowler investigation.

He said: "I am extremely disappointed by the CPS decision today. I will fight these allegations when they eventually get to court. Anyone who knows me, or who worked with me, would know that I wouldn't, and more importantly that I didn't, do anything to damage the Milly Dowler investigation. At the News of the World we worked on behalf of the victims of crime, particularly violent crime, and the idea that I would sit in my office dreaming up schemes to undermine investigations is simply untrue."

Brooks, who became chief executive of News International before resigning from the company last year, faces three counts of conspiring to intercept communications. In addition to the general conspiracy charge, she will face charges relating to the targeting of Andy Gilchrist, the former general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, and Dowler. Allegations about the hacking of the murdered schoolgirl's phone led Murdoch to decide to shut down the News of the World in 2011.

There was no public appearance for Brooks, but through her lawyers Kingsley Napley she issued a statement denying the charges. She said that "I did not authorise, nor was I aware of, phone hacking under my editorship" and added that "the charge concerning Milly Dowler is particularly upsetting, not only as it is untrue but also because I have spent my journalistic career campaigning for victims of crime. I will vigorously defend these allegations".

The others facing phone hacking related charges are Stuart Kuttner, former managing editor of the News of the World, Ian Edmondson, former assistant editor (news), Greg Miskiw, a former news editor, Neville Thurlbeck, former chief reporter, James Weatherup, former assistant news editor, and a private investigator, Glenn Mulcaire. Kuttner faces three charges, while Miskiw faces 10 charges. Edmondson faces 12 charges, Thurlbeck eight, and Weatherup eight. Mulcaire is charged over the voicemails of four people: Milly Dowler, Gilchrist, Smith and Clarke.

Rhodri Davies QC, counsel for News International, responded for the company in the last item of business at the Leveson inquiry. He said "voicemail hacking at the News of the World was profoundly wrong and is deeply regretted by News International" and the company had learned lessons "too severe to be forgotten".