Charlie Brooks was “too sloppy” after drinking red wine to notice that the bags he had hidden from police had not been returned to him as planned, the Old Bailey heard today.

A News International security guard drove back to Mr Brooks’s London home on 17 July 2011 while his wife Rebekah was being questioned by police about suspected phone hacking.

But, the hacking trial heard, the bags were not delivered by the guard to Mr Brooks and his friend Chris Palmer as he had expected. Instead only the pizza was taken up to the apartment for Mr Brooks and his friend to consume, along with six bottles of wine they drank during the evening.

The bags, containing laptop computers and Mr Brooks’s pornography collection, were discovered by a cleaner the next day stashed behind bins in the underground car park at Chelsea Harbour - and handed to the police.

Mr Brooks agreed he had wanted the bags to be returned to him that evening.

Andrew Edis QC, for the Crown, asked him: “So the pizza was something you added on to a pre-existing plan - which was to deliver the bags,” to which Mr Brooks replied: “Yes.”

Mr Edis continued: “But the pizza arrived and the bags didn’t?,” to which Mr Brooks again replied: “Yes.”

Asked why he had not noticed the bags were not back, Mr Brooks told the court: “I got a bit sloppy after a couple of bottles of red wine.”

However he denied Mr Edis’ suggestion that “drunkenness” was the only reason he could think of to explain the chain of events. Mr Brooks said: “No, that’s not correct.”

He and his wife deny conspiring with each other and NI’s head of security, Mark Hanna, to pervert the course of justice by hiding the bags from police.

Mr Edis’ cross-examination of Mr Brooks is due to conclude tomorrow.