How Rebecca Brooks rose from tea girl to top of media empire #TheElitePartyInJuly #Entertain9jar via @myentertain9jar

FROM sweeping floors and making tea, Rebekah Brooks rose to become one of the most influential women in Britain.

Rebecca Brooks is well regarded by Rupert Murdoch [AP]

Feted by the Government’s elite and friend of celebrities, the former tugboat deckhand’s daughter became a favourite of media mogul Rupert Murdoch.

Brooks, born in May 1968 at Warrington in Cheshire, decided as a 14-year-old comprehensive schoolgirl to be a journalist.

No job was too menial as she gained experience at her local newspaper. Her meteoric rise catapulted her to edit the News of the World and then The Sun.

In July 2011, 180 journalists were sacked but Brooks stepped down as Murdoch’s right-hand woman with a multi-million-pound pay-off

In 2005, she was nicknamed “Ginger Ninja” after beating up then husband, ex-EastEnders actor Ross Kemp.

The couple, who were married in Las Vegas in 2002, divorced in 2009 – the year she was made chief executive of Murdoch’s British newspaper empire.

A few months later she wed former racehorse trainer Charlie Brooks, hosting a reception in Oxfordshire with the guests including David Cameron and then premier Gordon Brown.

When the News of the World was closed in July 2011, 180 journalists were sacked but she stepped down as Murdoch’s right-hand woman with a multi-million-pound pay-off.