Phone hacking scandal deepens

[Jan Klimkowski]

Rupert at his most feeble:

Mr Watson pointed out that former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks admitted in 2003 that police were paid for information.

Mr Murdoch senior said: "I am now aware of that, I was not aware at the time. I'm also aware that she amended that considerably very quickly afterwards."

Mr Watson said: "I think she amended it seven or eight years afterwards but did you or anyone else in your organisation investigate it at the time?"

Mr Murdoch replied: "No. I didn't know of it.

"I'm sorry, if I can just say something and this is not as an excuse, maybe it's an explanation of my laxity.

"The News of the World is less than 1% of our company. I employ 53,000 people around the world who are proud and great and ethical and distinguished people, professionals in their work.

"I'm spread watching and appointing people whom I trust to run those divisions."

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Murdoch said he was also not informed about out-of-court payments sanctioned by his son James to settle phone-hacking cases involving Gordon Taylor and PR consultant Max Clifford. The News Corp chief said he had "never heard" of Gordon Taylor, the chief executive of footballers' union the PFA.

James Murdoch said his father had only become aware of the payments after they were made public by a newspaper (the Guardian, although he pointedly declined to refer to it directly). He said the level of the payments were "below the approval thresholds that would have to go to my father as chairman and chief executive of a global company".

Rupert Murdoch also said he had "never heard" of the News of the World's former chief reporter, Neville Thurlbeck, who was arrested and bailed earlier this year on suspicion of phone hacking. "That is the first I have heard of that," said Murdoch. "I can't answer. I don't know."

He also said he had not been aware that the culture select committee, in 2009, had accused News International executives of "collective amnesia" about the extent of phone hacking at the News of the World.

"I don't know who made that particular charge. I haven't heard that," he said. "You're really not saying amnesia, you're really saying lying," he told the committee.

Murdoch's performance before MPs today was being seen as a key test of his authority at the head of his global empire amid speculation that independent directors were weighing up the possibility of replacing him as chief executive.

Watson, who turned down successive offers by James Murdoch to take over answering questions on his father's behalf, said he wanted to put the questions to Rupert because he was ultimately responsible for corporate governance at News Corporation.

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