Kingsley Napley criminal litigation head Stephen Parkinson has been appointed to advise Rebekah Brooks following the former News International chief executive's arrest this weekend.

Brooks was released on bail last night, 12 hours after she was arrested by police investigating allegations of phone-hacking and illegal payments to police officers.

She is now set to face questions from MPs this Tuesday (19 July) in front of a Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee.

Parkinson specialises in white collar criminal litigation and regulatory litigation as well as public law work, and frequently advises high-profile individuals caught up in criminal or regulatory investigations.

Before joining Kingsley Napley on secondment from the Government Legal Service in 2005, Parkinson was a prosecutor in the Crown Prosecution Service, the legal adviser to the Companies Investigation Branches of the Department of Trade and Industry and has had responsibility for all the Government's chancery and regulatory litigation.

In 2003 he advised Prime Minster Tony Blair and other Cabinet Office witnesses during the Hutton Inquiry into the death of David Kelly, while he also represented Sir Ian Blair and other officers on the investigations arising out of the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell Tube station in 2005. He has also acted for former Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher and John Major.

Between 1999 and 2003 he was the deputy head of the Attorney General's Office, with responsibility for advising the law officers on all their responsibilities for criminal issues. He was called to the Bar in 1980 and he is also admitted to the Bar of the Turks and Caicos Islands.

Brooks, who edited the News of the World (NoW) between 2000 and 2003, resigned from her post as chief executive of News International on Friday (15 July). She was subsequently arrested and held at Scotland Yard for questioning. Brooks denies any wrongdoing.

In a statement, the Met said it had "arrested a female in connection with allegations of corruption and phone hacking" and that she had been arrested "on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications, contrary to Section1(1) Criminal Law Act 1977 and on suspicion of corruption allegations contrary to Section 1 of the Prevention of Corruption Act 1906."

In a statement, Parkinson said: "The position of Rebekah Brooks can be simply stated. She is not guilty of any criminal offence.

"The position of the Metropolitan Police is less easy to understand. Despite arresting her yesterday and conducting an interview process lasting nine hours, they put no allegations to her, and showed her no documents connecting her with any crime. They will in due course have to give an account of their actions, and in particular their decision to arrest her, with the enormous reputational damage that this has involved.

"In the meantime, Mrs Brooks has an appointment with the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee tomorrow. She remains willing to attend and to answer questions. It is a matter for Parliament to decide what issues to put to her and whether her appointment should take place at a later date."

The developments come after News Corporation head Rupert Murdoch last week alleged that one of his group's legal advisers, Harbottle & Lewis, made "a major mistake" in its part in an internal investigation into phone-hacking at the media mogul's newspaper business.

Murdoch made the comments in an interview with The Wall Street Journal published on Friday (15 July), which criticised Harbottle for its role in reviewing a number of emails from staff at the NoW in the wake of the criminal sentence handed out to its royal editor Clive Goodman in 2007.