UK phone hacking case: Jury sworn in,told to ignore misleading reports

The scandal led Murdoch to shut the 168-year-old newspaper and continues to shake Britains media,police and political establishments.

Judge John Saunders told the jury at Londons Central Criminal Court that the case had received an unprecedented amount of publicity that they must ignore in order to try the defendants on the evidence alone. Not only the defendants are on trial; British justice is on trial, he said.

Saunders said much UK commentary on the case had been inaccurate and misleading as well as offensive and demeaning to some of the defendants. It is the verdict of you 12,and only you 12,that we want at the end of this trial, he said.

The case expected to last up to six months is the first major criminal trial spawned by the 2011 revelation that the News of the World had hacked the mobile phone voicemails of kidnapped 13-year-old Milly Dowler,who was later found murdered.

Brooks,45,edited both the News of the World and its sister paper,The Sun,and was chief executive of Murdochs British newspaper division. Coulson,45,also edited the News of the World before becoming communications chief to Prime Minister David Cameron.

Brooks and Coulson face charges of conspiring to intercept communications and conspiring to commit misconduct in a public office,which refers to illegal payments to officials.