Rebekah Brooks released on bail until October 2011. On 13 March 2012, Brooks was rearrested, together with her husband, on suspicion of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. Ninety people have been arrested in conjunction with illegal acquisition of confidential information since police renewed investigations in 2011, many of them employees or agents of newspapers for which Brooks had responsibilities. Sixteen have been formally charged with crimes. On 15 May 2012, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) charged Brooks and five others with conspiring to pervert the course of justice. Charged along with Brooks regarding removal of documents and computers to conceal
Metropolitan Police role in the news media phone hacking scandal was Met commissioner from 2000 to 2005. He was credited with reopening communication between the Met and the news media, consciously cultivating relationships with them. In this, he was assisted by the Met's public affairs head, Dick Fedorcio. One senior officer reportedly said that Stevens was "a master of the media who hadn't appreciated the costs attached to close media relationships." After retiring, Stevens wrote a column for the "News of the World". In his autobiography, he stated that he had "worked hard to foster good relations with newspapers and had made himself 'available' to editors including Rebekah Brooks (then