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Prosecutors are going after Andy Coulson again after a jury failed to reach a majority verdict on two charges in the phone hacking scandal last week.
Coulson, the former News of the World editor, and his former colleague, Clive Goodman, both face two charges of "conspiring to cause misconduct in public office," for allegedly attempting to purchase royal phone directories from a palace police officer in 2005. Last week, a judge discharged the jury deliberating on these charges after they could not reach a suitable agreement. Andrew Edis, of the Crown Prosecution Service, announced Monday they plan to go ahead with a retrial.
According to the BBC, Edis described the directories in question as "a Who's Who to Britain for the first five years of the century," later adding that "what occurred was the routine invasion of privacy and that has the capacity to do serious harm."
After a long trial that will most likely be remembered as one of the most expensive in British history, the public's stance has splintered from the prosecution. What was once characterized as a witch hunt now more closely resembles the beating of a dead horse. "It is impossible not to conclude that the response of the police, prosecutors and the Government to what was undoubtedly an unedifying episode in the annals of British newspapers was completely out of proportion," Philip Johnston wrote in The Telegraph last week.