Insight: Rebekah Brooks to revisit her parliamentary past

Rebekah Brooks has reduced a prime minister to tears, threatened a member of parliament who inquired about bullying at her newspaper and told another troublesome politician she was surprised he wasn't out cruising for gay sex.

Brooks resigned on Friday as the head of News International, Rupert Murdoch's British newspaper arm. Together with Murdoch and his son James, who leads the international operations of Murdoch's media empire, the former editor will still face politicians probing News Corp's hacking scandal next week.

On the few occasions she has accepted requests to testify to parliament she has charmed her audience into submission. Things are likely to be less friendly next Tuesday.

Brooks will not only have to deal with a panel of angry inquisitors but will do so with her past testimony, and that of colleagues, hanging over her.

She is one of at least eight News International executives and senior journalists to have testified to parliament in the past decade. Their words are sure to be combed over before next week's hearing, as Britain heads toward a judicial inquiry into phone hacking, police bribery and press regulation.

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"The whole committee feels quite betrayed by the evidence that has been given to them by News International executives in two or three inquiries. They will be expecting apologies," said Steven Barnett, Professor of Communications at the University of Westminster.

They may be disappointed. Brooks told committee chairman John Whittingdale in a letter on Thursday that a police investigation "may prevent me from discussing these matters in detail." She said on Friday her resignation would make it possible to cooperate fully with the committee and other inquiries.

"A TRAVESTY OF THE TRUTH"

Here, however, is what Brooks, then editor of Murdoch's bestselling Sun newspaper, told parliament in written evidence to its committee on Culture, Media & Sport in 2003:

"The days of foot-in-the-door harassment and snatched photos are gone. The pictures of journalists mobbing ordinary people as portrayed by television are a travesty of the truth."

Her comments came as journalists from her own company were allegedly already hacking into phones, but long before this month's revelations that their targets may have gone beyond royalty and celebrities to include thousands of ordinary people, including murder victim Milly Dowler.

That same year, Les Hinton, who was head of News International until 2007 when he moved to New York to run Dow Jones & Co, defended press self-regulation and media treatment of ordinary people.

"There is probably no part of the code (of practice) that is paid greater attention than the issue of intrusion into grief," he said in response to questions from the same committee.

"Editors at all levels, on a daily basis, and journalists as well ... are not unfamiliar with the need to behave according to the strictures of the code in taking care not to intrude into the grief of bereaved members of the public."