Former News Of The World Editor To ‘Vigorously Contest’ Perjury Charge

Former News of the World editor Andy Coulson
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Another shoe has dropped in the ever-widening News Corporation phone-hacking scandal: police on Wednesday arrested former News Of The World Editor and former Prime Minister David Cameron aide Andy Coulson, charging him with perjury for allegedly lying under oath during a court appearance on phone hacking, The Guardian reports.

The law firm DLA Piper provided a statement to TPM Thursday saying that “Andy Coulson will vigorously contest the perjury allegations made against him yesterday by Strathclyde Police should they ever result in a trial. We have no further comment at this stage.”

Coulson’s testimony in question was delivered to the high court in Glasgow, during the perjury trial of Tommy Sheridan, a former socialist politician. Sheridan had won a defamation lawsuit against News of the World after the paper reported that he was caught up in a sex scandal. But a year later, as the Associated Press reports, Sheridan was arrested and charged with perjury in connection with the original hearing.

Coulson was Prime Minister David Cameron’s chief media adviser at the time, which makes his perjury charge an embarrassment for Cameron, said Paul Connew, former deputy editor of the News of the World (pre-phone hacking).

“Things are lapping ever-closer to the door of No. 10,” Connew said of the scandal, referring to the prime minister’s office. “The whole thing is still building and building.”

The perjury charge comes after Coulson was arrested in July 2011 on phone hacking and corruption allegations. He hasn’t been charged with a crime related to that arrest. The two arrests are part of separate investigations.

Coulson was detained early Wednesday in London, taken to Glasgow and formally charged and arrested later that evening, the BBC reports. He was later released from police custody.

Cameron is expected to appear before the Leveson inquiry into press practices sometime next month, which Connew said could be the “biggest event so far in the whole inquiry.”

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