London - The ex-wife of golfer Colin Montgomerie testified at Britain's phone-hacking trial on Monday that former News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks told her how easy it was to access celebrities' phones.
Eimear Cook said she had lunch with Brooks in 2005, when she was separating from the former European Ryder Cup team captain, and they discussed numerous people in the media "in a gossipy, fun way".
"I remember the topic of how easy it was to listen to their voicemails, as long as they hadn't changed their factory settings," Cook, who has since remarried, told London's Old Bailey court.
"She (Brooks) said that it was so easy to do and she couldn't believe that famous people... would have all these advisers and all you needed to do was change the PIN code to make the voicemail secure."
Brooks denies conspiring to illegally access the voicemail messages of public figures while she was editor of Rupert Murdoch's News of the World tabloid between 2000 and 2003.
Murdoch shut down the newspaper in disgrace in 2011 over revelations that its staff hacked the phones of a murdered schoolgirl as well as hundreds of politicians and celebrities.
Brooks is one of eight defendants in the trial, which began in October and is expected to last six months. She is accused of conspiring to hack phones, bribing public officials for stories, and hiding evidence.
Cook said Brooks told her an anecdote about former Beatle Paul McCartney and his ex-wife Heather Mills, where "I had the impression she was talking about Sir Paul McCartney's phone not having its PIN code changed."
She added that Brooks "told me how ludicrous it was, the simple need for people to protect their privacy. She went on to tell me about Sir Paul McCartney and Heather Mills".
However, Brooks' lawyer Jonathan Laidlaw accused Cook of lying to the jury.
He noted she recalled the two women discussing how Brooks had been accused of assaulting her husband, but said this incident did not take place until six weeks after they met.
Laidlaw said the matter of phone-hacking did not arise either: "It was not discussed by Mrs Brooks. This is a lie you have told the police and the jury." Cook denied this.
Brooks moved on to edit the News of the World's sister paper, The Sun, in 2003 and in 2009 was promoted to chief executive of Murdoch's British newspaper division.
She quit in 2011 when she became embroiled in the hacking scandal.
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