Chris Pharo claims ex-Sun editor once broke meeting room door handle after slamming it and ‘more often than not, she was nothing short of a nightmare’

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Rebekah Brooks was prone to furious outbursts when editor of the Sun and would often deluge the news editor with abusive emails throughout his working day, a court has heard.



The paper’s head of news, Chris Pharo, told a jury at the Old Bailey that she was once so angry she called her top executives a bunch of “fucking cunts”, telling them if they couldn’t get some proper stories on a news list quickly, they could all “fuck off”.

She then stormed out of the meeting room, breaking a door handle as she slammed it, he alleged.

“She could occasionally be fine, but more often then not, she was nothing short of a nightmare, he said.

“I very frequently received up to 20 abusive emails starting at 7.30am in the morning when she had the papers delivered to her home.

“They would continue throughout the day, and occasionally you would have an explosion in conference and afterwards she could sulk for days over a missed story.” Pharo recounted one incident when Brooks flew into a rage when that day’s news list was not good enough.

“She gathered not simply that one, but all the copies of the news list, and screwed them into a giant paper ball and threw them in my face,” he said.

“She said ‘if you can’t put together a fucking news list in the next fucking hour, you can fuck off’.

“She stormed out of the room. She slammed the door so hard she broke the door handle and her PA had to come from outside to let us out.”

Pharo said he then received an email, copied to all staff at the Sun, saying: “Have any of you got a story because my idiot news editor can’t find out.”

He said he had also witnessed Brooks throwing a phone and a water bottle at a senior Sun journalist, and she had a punchbag installed in her office “to release her tension”.

Pharo is on trial with a senior Sun reporter, Jamie Pyatt, accused of paying a Surrey police officer for inside information on investigations and celebrity arrests.

Pharo, who was in charge of the news desk throughout Brooks’ editorship at the Sun, said the News of the World scoop about David Blunkett’s affair led to Brooks sending senior colleagues a text the following morning.

“It said something along the lines of ‘yet again I’ve picked up this morning’s News of the World and it contains another agenda setting story. If you fucking cunts aren’t capable of matching them, I’ll sack the lot of you and replace you with them’.”

He said of the Sun’s owner, Rupert Murdoch: “It’s very much his personal fiefdom.

“Without the Sun and the success of the Sun in the 80s and 90s, there would be no Sky. It was the cornerstone of his empire.

“You were never left in any doubt who was in charge.

“There was the editor, and beyond the editor there was Mr Murdoch.” Pharo said Brooks was under pressure to deliver from Murdoch, who treated her like a “surrogate daughter”.

“Mr Murdoch periodically rang her up, often several times a day if he perceived a story was not good enough, we weren’t doing well or the paper wasn’t looking good,” he said.

“He put pressure on her and she passed that down.’ Pharo said he was once offered a job as news editor at the Sunday Mirror, but Brooks managed to talk him out of it by offering him the future role as news editor of the Sun.

Pharo told the court the Sun had an advert on page 2 offering to pay cash for stories, and he said he had no role in deciding if a source would be paid for any story.



He told the court he had never heard of the identity of Pyatt’s source and would not have asked the senior reporter to name him.

“When you received the emails from Jamie Pyatt, had you any idea he was referring to just one identifiable officer as the source of all these stories?” asked his barrister, Nigel Rumfitt QC.

Pharo replied: “No, I hadn’t.”

Rumfitt continued: “In playing your part, did you intend to encourage the source on particular stories to provide further stories by misconducting himself as a police officer in the future?” Pharo replied: “No I didn’t.”

He said no journalist would ever reveal their sources “in any way shape or form”, adding: “I never asked the question because I would never receive the answers.”

The trial continues.