Rebekah Brooks pressed for sacked Ian Edmondson to get paid

The embattled former News International chief executive reportedly pressed that the former assistant editor (news) continued to be paid monthly despite his dismissal and subsequent arrest.
Company sources told The New York Times that Mrs Brooks, Mr Edmondson’s former editor at the now defunct Sunday tabloid, pressed to “pay him a monthly stipend”.
But the decision caused friction between senior executives and “after an internal disagreement the payments were moved from the newsroom budget to News International’s”, the paper reported.
The company defended the decision to place journalists on paid leave after their arrests because officials believed in the fundamental British legal right that a person was “innocent until proven guilty”.
But the disclosures about Mr Edmondson, contained in a heavily sourced 2400 word feature, is a fresh blow to the company that has struggled to contain the fallout from the scandal that led to his former paper being closed last month.