London (CNN) -- Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of News International, has been charged with trying to obstruct a police investigation into the phone-hacking scandal.
Brooks faces three counts of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, linked to claims she plotting to remove boxes of documents from News International offices, and to hide computers and documents from police.
Brooks resigned as chief executive of Rupert Murdoch's News International in July amid public outrage over claims of widespread hacking by staff at its News of the World newspaper.
She was once feted as one of the rising stars of the British media: She was the youngest person ever to edit a national British newspaper, and made a stellar rise through the ranks of Rupert Murdoch's media empire.
She held the top job at News International, News Corp.'s British subsidiary, for two years after editing the country's best-selling daily tabloid, The Sun, and its best-selling Sunday tabloid, News of the World.
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But following sweeping allegations of illegal eavesdropping by News of the World journalists when she was editor, she has seen her fortunes fade, and was arrested and questioned several times by police investigating hacking, prior to being charged.
Brooks has kept a low profile since her resignation, but was ridiculed in the British press when it was revealed that London's Metropolitan Police had lent her a retired police horse. As politicians became engulfed in the scandal, with allegations that ministers acted improperly in their dealings with News Corp., Prime Minister David Cameron admitted he had ridden the horse.
Last week, she appeared before the Leveson Inquiry into press standards to answer key questions about the hacking scandal.
She said she had never witnessed inappropriate dealings with the police, and detailed her frequent contacts with UK Prime Minister David Cameron in the run-up to the 2010 election.
Brought up in Cheshire, northern England, in the 1970s, Brooks is said to have decided on a career in journalism at the age of 14, beginning with a job as a "tea girl" at her local paper.
In her late teens, she moved to Paris, where she is reported to have worked at architectural magazine L'Architecture d'aujourd'hui and studied at the Sorbonne.
On her return to the UK, she worked in regional papers before making the move to Sunday tabloid News of the World in the late 1980s.
Starting out as a secretary, Rebekah Wade -- her maiden name -- swiftly made her way up the editorial food chain, becoming deputy editor by the age of 27.
She tells of how, at a corporate golf day shortly after she was appointed, one senior executive ordered her to sew the buttons back on his shirt.
Sexism in the workplace aside, Brooks' rise through the ranks continued. She was named deputy editor of the hugely popular Sun newspaper, the News of the World's sister title, in 1998.
In 2000, she returned to the News of the World, this time in the top job, becoming the youngest-ever editor of a national British paper.
While editor of the weekly, Brooks argued for the creation of a U.S.-style "Sarah's Law," which would allow parents with young children to know about anyone convicted of child sex crimes living close to their homes.
As part of the controversial campaign, which was inspired by the murder of eight-year-old Sarah Payne in July 2000, Brooks took the decision to name and shame offenders in the pages of her paper.
The lists sparked witch-hunts and riots, as communities across Britain tried to hound pedophiles out of their neighborhoods. It was condemned by police, but Brooks remains unrepentant.
In a 2009 speech, she admitted the campaign was "a blunt and contentious way of informing the public... hard lessons were learned but I don't regret the campaign for one minute."
She married soap star Ross Kemp, famous for his hard-man role as Grant Mitchell in long-running British TV show "Eastenders."
In 2003, she was promoted again, becoming editor of the Sun.
In addition to working for two of the UK's most famous tabloids, Brooks hit the headlines herself on a number of occasions.
In November 2005, she was arrested after an alleged assault on her then-husband, Kemp. No charges were ever filed against her. The couple divorced in 2009.
Later the same year she married horse trainer Charlie Brooks. The couple's wedding party was attended by a host of big names, including the Murdoch clan (Rupert, James and Elisabeth), the then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and future-Prime Minister David Cameron.
Brooks held the Sun post until 2009 when she was handpicked for the role of News International chief executive by Rupert Murdoch.
The pair had been close for many years: before her downfall Rupert Murdoch was said to have treated Brooks like a daughter. Whether the relationship has survived the scandal remains unclear.
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