Silence, then a lawyer's statement of regret, was all that emerged from Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation after it emerged that two former editors, a managing editor, four senior reporters and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire faced 19 charges of conspiring to hack into phones.

For the past year, the media giant has increasingly acknowledged the gravity of the hacking crisis, starting with the closure of the News of the World - and recently deciding to spin off the Sun and the Times and its other newspapers to a separate company. The charging decisions now mean a high-profile courtroom airing of the phone-hacking story is inevitable.

It was possible that the CPS would choose not to lay charges, although Rebekah Brooks separately faces three obstruction of justice charges, while Andy Coulson has been charged with perjury by a Scottish court. A CPS decision to take no further action would have prompted a very different company reaction. But Alison Levitt QC, as the Crown Prosecution Service's principal legal adviser, concluded that prosecutions were required "in the public interest" - meaning the media group has to now endure the full exposure of trials: court cases in which all sorts of material could be aired, never mind witnesses demanded, in an adversarial environment.