Andy Coulson faces jail when he’s sentenced on Friday for his role in the phone-hacking scandal that brought down Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World tabloid.

Four ex-colleagues of the former newspaper editor will also be sentenced at London’s Old Bailey over the industrial-scale hacking of the voicemails of thousands of people including royals, celebrities and politicians.

They all face up to two years in jail under British law.

The sentencing will revive an embarrassing issue for British PM David Cameron, who was forced to make a public apology after Coulson, a former Cameron top aide, was found guilty on June 24 following a marathon eight-month trial.

It also puts the spotlight back on News Corp tycoon Murdoch, who shut down the News of the World in disgrace in July 2011 after it emerged the tabloid had hacked the voicemails of a murdered schoolgirl.

Rebekah Brooks, the former head of Murdoch’s British newspaper arm and editor of the News of the World from 2000 to 2003, was dramatically cleared of all charges at the same trial, along with her husband and three other people.

Coulson, 46 – editor of News of the World from 2003 to 2007 and then Cameron’s communications chief until his resignation in 2011 – was convicted of one count of conspiring with others to illegally access voicemails.

The others being sentenced on Friday are former News of the World news editor Greg Miskiw, chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck, journalist James Weatherup, and private detective Glenn Mulcaire.

They have all pleaded guilty to conspiring to hack phones.

During mitigation hearings this week, Coulson blamed lawyers at the tabloid for failing to tell him phone hacking was illegal.