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British Prime Minister David Cameron (File)
# horsing around
Did David Cameron ride the ex-police horse that was lent to Rebekah Brooks?
A report indicates that it might well have happened, raising new questions about the British prime minister’s relationship with the former News International executive who resigned over phone hacking.
IT HAS EMERGED that David Cameron could have ridden the horse that Scotland Yard lent to former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks.
The Telegraph’s Christopher Hope reports that an aide to the British Prime Minister has confirmed that Cameron went riding with Brooks’ husband Charlie and could well have ridden Raisa, the ex-police horse who was stabled at the Brooks’ farm between 2008 and 2010.
It emerged earlier this week that the Metropolitan Police offered the horse to the former editor of the News of The World and The Sun newspapers as they often do to “suitable” retirement homes. It raised questions about Brooks’ close relationship with Scotland Yard.
Brooks was responsible for feeding the animal and paying vet bills but it remained the property of the Metropolitan police, the London Evening Standard reported.
According to the Telegraph today a close aide of the Prime Minister has confirmed that Cameron was lent a number of horses to ride from the Brooks’ stable over the years and could well have ridden Raisa, the horse in question.
But he rode with Charlie Brooks as opposed to the former media executive: “He has no recollection of ever going riding with Rebekah Brooks,” the aide told the paper.
The relationship between Brooks and the police and Cameron and Brooks has been scrutinised in the wake of the phone hacking scandal. Both were said to be part of the so-called Chipping Norton set of powerful public figures who met regularly prior to the hacking scandal breaking last year.
Brooks was forced to resign as CEO of News International after it emerged that the organisations’ now-defunct publication, the News of The World, hacked the voicemail of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler when Brooks edited the paper in 2002.
She has denied any knowledge of phone hacking at newspapers she has edited.
Her former boss Rupert Murdoch sought to defend Brooks in a tweet on Wednesday in which he said: “Now they are complaining about R Brooks saving an old horse from the glue factory.”
Predictably, the horse itself has its own parody Twitter account, @RebekahsHorse
Read: Scotland Yard loaned a police horse to Rebekah Brooks
Read: Rebekah Brooks was hacked by NoTW while editing sister paper The Sun
