Rebekah Brooks re-arrested in hacking probe

For years Rebekah Brooks was one of News Corporation chief executive Rupert Murdoch's most trusted lieutenants.

Now the former News of the World editor and News International boss has been arrested for a second time, according to Sky News, which Murdoch partly owns.

It said police detained Brooks and her husband Charlie after a dawn raid on their home in the English county of Oxfordshire.

They're among six people arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, as part of the investigation into phone hacking.

A number of addresses were also searched.

Brian Paddick is a former senior policeman turned politician who had his phone hacked.

(SOUNDBITE) (ENGLISH) BRIAN PADDICK, PHONE HACKING VICTIM, SAYING:

"Well bearing in mind what people have been arrested for it looks as if they are suspected of covering up illegal activity at News International rather than being involved in the illegal activity of hacking or paying bribes to people. So a new phase of the investigation."

Brooks resigned from News International last year.

She was previously arrested then released a few days before her appearance at a British Parliamentary hearing into the phone hacking scandal.

(SOUNDBITE) (English) REBEKAH BROOKS, SAYING (JULY 19 2001):

"Clearly what happened at the News of the World and certainly when the allegations of voice intercepts, voicemail intercepts of victims of crime is pretty horrific and abhorrent. So I just wanted to reiterate that."

The arrests are likely to heap further embarrassment on British Prime Minister David Cameron.

Cameron had a close relationship with Rebekah Brooks, and is friends with her husband from their time at the elite Eton school.

Cameron was forced to admit riding a retired police horse which was given to the Brooks by London's Metropolition Police.

Andrew Potter, Reuters