Rebekah Brooks trials, news update: The prosecution story that was unraveled against former News International CEO Rebekah Brooks is a “pantomime” says her lawyer. The embattled media executive denies conspiracy to hack phones, pay public officials and pervert the court of justice.

Rebekah Brook’s barrister has told the Old Bailey that her trial has a resembled a “witch hunt,” BBC reports.

As earlier mentioned, Mr. Laidlaw said that the prosecution’s story was “less of a novel, more of a pantomime.”

According to BBC, the former News of the World editor and News International chief executive spent two weeks giving evidence, including five days of cross-examination by the prosecution.

In the second and final day of Mr. Laidlaw’s speech, he told the jury that a witch in a 16th Century medieval trial “could not win…if she drowned she was dead, if she survived the ducking tool she was burnt at the stake.”

The former editor’s lawyer said he was not suggesting that this prosecution was a witch trial, but it had times been a witch hunt.

Referring to the accusations that when she was faced with hacking that she had failed to respond as a proper chief executive, he said Mrs. Brooks accepted she had made errors in how she acted.

“She is not the first or the last CEO to act single-mindedly to protect the reputation of the company she worked for,” Mr. Laidlaw added, the BBC noted.

"As CEO she did have a duty to act in its best interest. The prosecution cannot prove to you her decision not to get her spade out and start digging for evidence for phone hacking is anything to do with a fear that she would unearth evidence of her own guilt.

"Her response to the scandal was motivated by the desire to prevent further damage to the company."