Phone hacking: prosecutor will decide on charges within weeks Keir Starmer, director of public prosecutions, said prosecutors would aim to decide the cases as a 'batch'. Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian Prosecutors aim to decide by the end of this month whether they will bring phone-hacking charges against former News of the World journalists, the director of public prosecutions has told the Guardian. Keir Starmer said that he was "reasonably confident" that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) would reach a conclusion on what action it will take by the end of July in respect of 13 case files relating to alleged phone-hacking offences conducted by reporters and editors. The DPP added that prosecutors would aim to decide the cases "as a batch" - raising the prospect of a dramatic day of announcements in which a group of former journalists learn whether or not they are to go on trial. The individuals under CPS examination have not been identified by name - although 13 or 14 journalists have been previously arrested and remain on police bail, including Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson, both former editors of the Sunday tabloid. Other former News of the World journalists who have been arrested as part of the Met's Operation Weeting inquiry into phone hacking include one-time assistant editor (news) Ian Edmondson, former chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck, and the former managing editor Stuart Kuttner. If charges are brought, they would result in the first trial related to phone hacking since the News of the World's Clive Goodman and the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire were successfully prosecuted in 2007 for intercepting voicemail messages belonging to members of the royal household. They were sentenced to four months and six months in jail respectively. Starmer said prosecutors were working on the basis of a "broad interpretation" of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa), which covers phone hacking. This would mean it was not absolutely necessary - for the purposes of bringing a criminal prosecution - for a voicemail message to have been unheard by its intended recipient before it was hacked into by, or on behalf of, the News of the World. There had previously been disagreement between the CPS and the Metropolitan Police over whether a criminal offence had been committed if a voicemail message had already been heard by the person for whom it was left. Former Met assistant commissioner John Yates had argued that the law was unclear in this area. Starmer added that "in so far as it was necessary," alternative hacking charges could also be brought, including conspiring to intercept communications, which does not necessarily require hacking to have taken place, and computer misuse offences. The development comes as the CPS is poised to close a consultation on how it intends to evaluate the public interest in cases affecting the media. Starmer said he would reflect on various issues raised by newspapers and broadcasters in response to his already published interim guidance. In particular, Starmer said he would re-examine the CPS's proposed definition of the public interest, which would be used to evaluate factors mitigating any alleged criminal acts conducted by a journalist. The interim guidelines had proposed a catch-all definition, which said that the public interest could be served by "conduct which is capable of raising or contributing to an important matter of public debate." It had been suggested that the open-ended definition of the public interest left little room for journalists to expose sexual misconduct. Starmer said in the light of responses from newspapers and broadcasters, he was considering turning the broad definition into a list of potential meanings, including "serious hypocrisy" - the conventional tabloid justification for exposing extramarital affairs. "We've not formed a view on what is right," Starmer said. The DPP added that he would also consider whether the CPS public interest guidelines should "expressly reference" industry codes of practice, the Ofcom broadcasting code or the Press Complaints Commission code - which could act in mitigation for journalists who followed them. He also said he hoped that the Information Commissioner's Office, which has the power to bring prosecutions against journalists for alleged breaches of the Data Protection Act, would use the guidelines the CPS had drawn up. The CPS has already made a range of charging decisions in the past couple of months. It opted to charge Brooks with three counts of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice in May and decided not to charge Guardian journalists David Leigh and Amelia Hill. Starmer added that a mitigating public-interest factor in the Hill case - which saw the CPS also decide not to charge a police officer who had allegedly passed information to the Guardian during the early stages of the Weeting inquiry - was her part in the Guardian's overall investigation into phone hacking. Starmer said the CPS would not insist on assessing any alleged criminality in the production of an individual news story in isolation from any wider investigation of which it was part. 11 June CPS received five files for charging advice involving five journalists, all in relation to allegations of offences under Ripa. 15 June It received two files for charging advice involving two journalists, all in relation to allegations of offences under Ripa. 19 June It received four files for charging advice involving four journalists, all in relation to allegations of offences under Ripa. 22 June It received two files for charging advice involving one journalist and one individual, in relation to allegations of offences under Ripa.