• Murdoch's former chief executive has crack team of legal and PR advisers

• Unclear whether Brooks will still give evidence to MPs

Rebekah Brooks: arrest was a surprise after whe met officers at a London police station on Sunday. Photograph: Barry Batchelor/PA

Rebekah Brooks did not know she was going to become the 10th person arrested in the phone-hacking investigation when her resignation as News International's chief executive was announced on Friday.

It is understood that the appointment to be interviewed by police was not in her diary until Friday evening, hours after she left the company after 22 years.

It was not until she met officers at a London police station that she learned she was being arrested on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications and on suspicion of corruption.

"It was quite a surprise," her spokesman said.

Minutes after Brooks was taken into custody at midday, David Wilson, the chairman of the public relations agency Bell Pottinger, had been asked by her lawyers to handle press inquiries.

"Over the coming weeks she will continue to press her innocence," said Wilson, who was on the PR team aiding Madeleine McCann's parents during the first weeks after her abduction. "She intends to clear her name."

It was unclear on Sunday night whether Brooks will give evidence as planned to MPs on the culture, media and sport's select committee. Members were taking legal advice. James and Rupert Murdoch are scheduled to attend.

Wilson said Brooks had been "offering since January to assist in any way that she could, and only last week the police were saying she wasn't on their radar".

He added: "Her resignation and her agreement to attend the select committee hearing on Tuesday seem to have prompted a change of tack."

Brooks – who had resigned after huge pressure, with calls from across the political spectrum for her to go – is beginning to assemble a crack team of advisers. Her legal representative is Stephen Parkinson of Kingsley Napley solicitors, whose website describes him as frequently representing "high-profile individuals caught up in criminal or regulatory investigations".

Parkinson advised Tony Blair and his cabinet on the Hutton inquiry, and Sir Ian Blair and other officers during investigations arising out of the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes in Stockwell.

Wilson and his colleagues at the agency founded by Lord Tim Bell, Margaret Thatcher's favourite spin doctor, are veteran crisis management experts, having handled everything from Eurostar trains stuck in tunnels to allegations of information theft in Formula 1.

Brooks was arrested on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications, and on suspicion of corruption, according to a statement from the Metropolitan police. She was interviewed with regard to both Operation Weeting, which is looking into phone hacking, and Operation Elveden, which is looking at allegations of payments to police officers.

The last two weeks have seen Brooks, the former News International chief executive, transformed from the Murdoch empire's closest link to Britain's political elite to an outsider facing criminal charges and fighting to salvage her reputation.

On Saturday 2 July, she was a guest at an all-night party hosted by PR boss Matthew Freud and his wife, Murdoch's daughter Elisabeth, at their Cotswolds mansion, Burford Priory. The event was nothing less than a gathering of the country's political and media masters.

The BBC director general, Mark Thompson, and his star reporter Robert Peston rubbed shoulders with Peter Mandelson, Labour leader Ed Miliband's brother, David, and the education secretary, Michael Gove.

According to reports, Brooks was not as gregarious as usual, spending much of the evening locked in conversation with her boss, James Murdoch, and other News International executives.

The following Monday, the Guardian broke the news that murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler's voicemail messages had not only allegedly been hacked, but that they may have been deleted to make room for new messages, giving her parents the false hope that she was still alive.

On Thursday 7 July, the decision was taken to close the News of the World.

Announcing his decision, James Murdoch stood by his key lieutenant, saying: "Fundamentally, I am satisfied that Rebekah, her leadership in this business and her standard of ethics and her standard of conduct throughout her career are very good."

When Rupert Murdoch flew in to London last week to take charge of the crisis, one of his first acts was to signal his full support for Brooks by taking her to dinner in Mayfair. Asked what his priority was, he replied, indicating Brooks: "This one."

Calls for her resignation swiftly followed – from Dowler's parents, the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, and Ed Miliband. By Friday morning, following further revelations and the withdrawal of News Corp's bid for its satellite TV subsidiary Sky, had fallen on her sword.

Brooks, 43, got her first job in Fleet Street while still a teenager, joining Eddie Shah's short-lived tabloid, the Post, as features secretary. After the Post closed she arrived at the News of the World's magazine, where she was quickly promoted by the then editor, Piers Morgan.

By the age of 29, she was deputy editor of the Sun. At 32, she became the youngest national newspaper editor in the company when Rupert Murdoch gave her the top job at the News of the World. Three years later she was editing the Sun.

During her six years at the helm of the paper, she made her name exposing Angus Deayton and Prince Harry's drug taking, and initiated the notorious campaign for "Sarah's law", naming and shaming sex offenders in the wake of the murder of another schoolgirl, Sarah Payne.

Her one previous arrest, in 2005, was under very different circumstances. She was picked up by police after allegedly assaulting her then husband, the EastEnders actor Ross Kemp. The TV hardman sustained a cut to the mouth but no charges were brought.

Back then, Brooks was editor of the Sun. Rupert Murdoch is said to have sent a designer suit to the police station so she would look her best when she left the cells. With typical bravado, she went straight to the office. After uttering the words: "Much happening today?" she took control of the news conference and ordered a carefully worded frontpage story on the incident. While the team of advisers Brooks has assembled will help to fight her corner, she can no longer command a national newspaper to back her.