Phone hacking scandal deepens

[Magda Hassan]

Dirty tricks and leaks at the heart of Scotland Yard

JAMES CUSICK , CAHAL MILMO

MONDAY 16 APRIL 2012

1 / 2

Scotland Yard today faces claims of a secret campaign from inside the highest ranks of the force to oust the former Commissioner Ian Blair a civil war that pitted senior colleagues against one another and undermined its leadership during one of the most tumultuous periods in its history.
The extraordinary allegations are contained in a suppressed police-intelligence report which outlines allegations that a senior Met manager set out to cripple his own Commissioner. It will lead to renewed scrutiny of the entangled relationship between the Metropolitan Police and Rupert Murdoch's News International.
Lord Blair, whose tenure as Britain's top police officer between 2005 and 2008 was dogged by a long-running newspaper campaign questioning his competence, has demanded to know why he was kept in the dark about the existence of the report. He saw the internal intelligence document written in 2006 by an officer serving on the Yard's original phone-hacking inquiry for the first time only earlier this year.
Lord Blair has now submitted the file to the Yard's Operation Weeting the ongoing investigation into the hacking scandal with a series of searching questions about why he was not told about it when he was in office and what action was taken to investigate the leaks.
The Independent can reveal that the report contains incendiary claims that the Met's eight-strong management board was "compromised" effectively no longer secure with intelligence details from a reopened murder investigation being passed out of the Yard along with material reflecting a civil war inside the Met's upper echelons about the way it was being run. The Met last night confirmed the existence of the intelligence report. Written by a detective inside the Met's original phone-hacking inquiry, it states that a member of the management board comprising the Yard's most senior personnel was briefing against Lord Blair's performance and informing outsiders about key Met cases.
The report also claims that Lord Stevens, Lord Blair's predecessor, had a close relationship with a senior executive from the News of the World who is named in the report.
Following his retirement in February 2005, Lord Stevens was signed up to write a column for the NOTW which was ghost-written by the paper's former deputy editor Neil Wallis. The Times and the NOTW also serialised his biography. Police watchdogs last week heavily criticised senior Yard officers for the hiring of Mr Wallis as a PR adviser in 2009, saying the force had exhibited "poor judgement" in employing the tabloid executive.
The management board of the Met has recently been the subject of examination by the Leveson Inquiry. Among its key figures was Dick Fedorcio, the head of the Yard's directorate of public affairs who resigned from his post last month when it became clear he would face gross-misconduct charges over the decision to employ Mr Wallis in 2009.
Mr Fedorcio last night denied that he had played any part in the leaking of information, saying: "I have no knowledge of this." And Mr Fedorcio recently told Lord Justice Leveson, "I don't believe I have ever briefed against Lord Blair."
The former Deputy Assistant Commissioner Brian Paddick told the Leveson Inquiry that negative briefing against Lord Blair had intensified in the run-up to his being chosen as Lord Stevens' successor. Mr Paddick revealed there had been media speculation as to how Mr Fedorcio could continue in his role as the Met's media boss when "he had briefed so heavily against Lord Blair before his appointment as Commissioner".
The Met last night said that the report did exist but was not being investigated by Operation Weeting. In a statement, the Yard said: "The intelligence report dates from several years ago. It did not identify an individual as the source of information allegedly being disclosed from the MPS management board and it did not warrant further action at that time. This remains the case and it is not being investigated by Operation Weeting."
Intelligence reports are a key part of police investigations, providing the building blocks for evidence in criminal inquiries as well as providing officers with vital background on individuals of interest to police. Their use is tightly controlled and each report is graded according to the reliability of its source and contents as well as who can have access to it.
The document provided to Lord Blair which is likely to have been classified as highly sensitive and restricted to a small number of officers also focuses on links between Lord Stevens and a senior NOTW executive, and describes a close relationship between the two. The report suggests the two became close when Lord Stevens was the Yard's Deputy Commissioner between 1998 and 2000.
The document was drawn up at the time that the Yard had undertaken a fresh investigation into the south London murder of private investigator Daniel Morgan, whose 1987 killing remains one of the Met's most troubling unsolved cases.
The commissionership of Lord Blair was one of the most turbulent in the history of the Yard, coinciding with the 7/7 bombings and the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes by armed police in Stockwell, south London.
Lord Blair recently told the Leveson Inquiry that he believed the way he was consistently criticised as Commissioner for being too liberal and too close to the Labour government and their policing policies resulted from "political forces and the press" combining to deliver "a monstering" that lasted throughout his entire term of office. He told the inquiry: "I can think of no equivalent long-term treatment of a public servant in this manner."
He also told Lord Justice Leveson that when he was Commissioner the number of leaks to the media increased and, though he had never suspected senior colleagues of passing information to journalists for money, he believed there was "a desire to advance their own views in the public mind or to improve their own profile".
The Oxford-educated officer was pilloried by a number of newspapers, in particular by News International titles. In an editorial published in June 2006, the NOTW called for Lord Blair's resignation after the Stockwell shooting, saying he had "lost the dressing room" and the "top tier at the Yard are in despair". It added: "We share Lord Stevens' view that police cannot engage in politically correct pussyfooting when lives are at risk."
Late in his commissionership, Lord Blair was told that both his official and private mobile telephone numbers had been found in the notebook of the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire. Operation Weeting told Lord Blair last year that it believed these numbers had been obtained by Mulcaire in 2006 the same year when intelligence was being gathered about the Yard's internecine strife. Lord Blair said he had yet to be shown evidence that his telephone had been hacked.
The relationship between Lord Stevens and Mr Wallis was detailed by the former tabloid executive during his evidence to the Leveson Inquiry earlier this month. Mr Wallis, who disclosed that he had advised Lord Stevens to present himself as a "thief taker" in his successful application to become head of the Met, said the former Commissioner had conducted a successful relationship with the media that contrasted with the "cerebral" Lord Blair, who, he said, had not been interested in the views of the tabloid press.
When Lord Stevens began his column for the NOTW, entitled "The Chief", Lord Blair made clear his displeasure. The column continued until October 2007. Mr Wallis said: "On a number of occasions [Lord Blair] was heard to comment on the fact that he could not understand how a column could be headlined 'The Chief' when it was factually incorrect as he himself was now the Metropolitan Police chief." Lord Stevens did not respond to a request to comment on the allegations in the intelligence report.
Lord Blair said he had no comment to make on the matter.
The Labour MP Chris Bryant, who helped to expose the phone-hacking scandal, said: "These are extraordinary revelations. As every new strand of this story appears it seems ever clearer that the Murdoch newspaper empire behaved like a state within a state." News International declined to comment.
Lord Blair: technocrat or pioneer?
When Ian Blair moved into the Commissioner's suite on the eighth floor of New Scotland Yard on 1 January 2005, the differences between the Oxford-educated policeman and his predecessor soon became clear.
To the public and indeed much of his force, John Stevens had succeeded in building up a reputation as a man of action with a common touch. His nickname, "Swifty", was a reference to his impressive arrest rate as a detective and he was regularly called the "coppers' cop".
By contrast, Lord Blair was perceived to be a distant technocrat obsessed with political correctness, who was eager to side with the then-Labour government. In reality, he was a pioneer in areas such as increasing ethnic minorities in the Met but it was easy for his critics to contrast him with Lord Stevens and label him as "New Labour's cop".
Events did little to reduce the perception that Lord Blair's Yard was prone to avoidable and horrific mishaps. The shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes and the revelation of the failures that led to the tragedy in July 2005 dented morale in the force and led to accusations that the man at the top was a divisive figure.
Ironically for a man panned as politically correct, he was accused in 2008 by the Met's highest-ranking Asian officer, Tarique Ghaffur, of racism and discrimination. This was strongly denied, but Mr Ghaffur left the force with a £300,000 out-of-court settlement.
Lord Blair resigned in October 2008 after London mayor Boris Johnson made it clear the Yard needed "new leadership". He was made a life peer in May 2010.
CAHAL MILMO
The Metropolitan Police: a force divided
January 2005
Lord Blair, formerly Deputy Commissioner to Lord Stevens, becomes head of the Metropolitan Police. He is criticised for being too close to the Labour government. Lord Stevens later writes a column for the News of the World.
December 2005
The Yard begins investigating a complaint from Buckingham Palace that details about the private life of Prince William are appearing in the NOTW. Officers establish royal aides' voicemail messages are being listened to by private investigator Glenn Mulcaire and the paper's royal editor, Clive Goodman.
Spring 2006
A detective sergeant on the hacking investigation, later criticised for its failure to tackle the full extent of the scandal, writes an internal report stating that the Yard's management board is "compromised" and material damaging to the reputation of the force and its leader is being leaked.
June 2006
The Crown Prosecution Service says it will not press charges against Kate Moss for alleged cocaine use after an investigation ordered by Lord Blair. It was later alleged the inquiry foundered because of an internal Met campaign to erode the Commissioner's authority.
January 2007
Glenn Mulcaire and Clive Goodman are jailed for phone hacking.
August 2008
Assistant Commissioner Tarique Ghaffur accuses Lord Blair of discrimination and threatens to take the Yard to an employment tribunal.
October 2008
Lord Blair announces his resignation after London Mayor Boris Johnson withdraws his support.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/cri...46599.html

[Jan Klimkowski]

The Labour MP Chris Bryant, who helped to expose the phone-hacking scandal, said: "These are extraordinary revelations. As every new strand of this story appears it seems ever clearer that the Murdoch newspaper empire behaved like a state within a state."

Indeed.

As this thread has argued from its inception.

[Jan Klimkowski]

Blackmail.

Leverage.

A true crime family.

Tom Watson: News Corp operated like 'shadow state'

Labour MP who led campaign against phone hacking also says News of the World aimed to investigate MPs' private lives

Dan Sabbagh and Lisa O'Carroll

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 19 April 2012 11.59 BST


News Corporation is a "toxic institution" that operated like a "shadow state" in British society, according to a Labour MP who is the co-author of a new book about the phone-hacking scandal.

Tom Watson, joint writer of Dial M for Murdoch, said that the book also featured allegations that Murdoch's News of the World set out to search for "secret lovers" or "extramarital affairs" of MPs on the culture, media and sport select committee in 2009.

At a packed press conference, Watson, a member of the Commons culture select committee, said that the surveillance revelation passed onto him by former News of the World chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck demonstrated how the Murdoch organisation tried to intimidate parliament.

Thurlbeck gave Watson an on-the-record interview, with a witness present, in which he said the then News of the World editor, Colin Myler, told journalists on the Sunday tabloid to "find out everything you can about every single member".

At the time the select committee was conducting its second inquiry into phone hacking, in the wake of revelations in the Guardian that the practice went beyond a single "rogue reporter" at the tabloid.

The aim was to discover "who was gay, who had affairs, anything we can use," according to Thurlbeck, as quoted in the book. "Each reporter was given two members [MPs] and there were six reporters that went on for around 10 days."

Thurlbeck told Watson that the investigations eventually "fell by the wayside" and that "even Ian Edmondson", the then news editor, "realised that there was something quite horrible about doing this".

Watson, and his co-author Martin Hickman, an Independent journalist, said that they believed that pressure on MPs at the time influenced the decision not to compel Rebekah Brooks, who was then News International's chief executive, to give evidence before the committee.

[Magda Hassan]

Hacking scandal: the net tightens on the Murdochs

Legal campaign against News Corp in US gathers momentum as Rupert and James Murdoch prepare to appear before Leveson next week

CAHAL MILMO , JAMES CUSICK , STEPHEN FOLEY


FRIDAY 20 APRIL 2012












Rupert Murdoch's grip on his media empire was dramatically challenged yesterday after his company was labelled a "toxic shadow state" which launched a dirty tricks campaign against MPs and now faces a salvo of phone-hacking claims in the United States.
On a tumultuous day for the media mogul, the lawyer who brought the first damages claims against the News of the World in Britain said he had uncovered new allegations of the use of "dark arts" by News Corp in America and was ready to file at least three phone-hacking lawsuits in the company's backyard.
The sense of a legal net tightening around Mr Murdoch and News Corp was heightened by the announcement that he and his son James will testify separately next week before the Leveson Inquiry into press standards during three days of what is likely to be uncomfortable scrutiny of alleged widespread criminality in their British tabloid newspapers.
In a separate development, the royal editor of The Sun became the latest journalist on the paper to be arrested on suspicion of making corrupt payments to public officials.
The arrest coincided with the publication of an incendiary book on the scandal which levelled new accusations that the NOTW set out on an extraordinary campaign of intimidation of MPs to try to blunt their investigations into its alleged law breaking.
Last night senior MPs called for News International (NI) to be investigated by the Commons for potential contempt of Parliament over the claims that members of the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee were targeted by attempts to dig dirt on their private lives. Dial M for Murdoch, written by the Labour MP Tom Watson and The Independent's Martin Hickman, also alleges that:
l Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of NI, was bugged in her own office shortly before she resigned last summer over the phone hacking of Milly Dowler, the murdered schoolgirl.
l On his release from prison, Glenn Mulcaire, the convicted NOTW hacker, allegedly was contracted to give security advice to a private security company, Quest, whose chairman is Lord Stevens, a former Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.
l NI intermediaries approached Mr Watson with a "deal" to "give him" former NOTW editor and Downing Street press chief Andy Coulson but that Ms Brooks was "sacred".
NI, which runs Mr Murdoch's British newspapers, said it had no comment to make on the book.
At a packed Westminster press conference, Mr Watson, who is a member of the Culture, Media and Sport committee, said the claim that the NOTW set out in 2009 to undermine the MPs investigating it came from Neville Thurlbeck, the NOTW's former chief reporter.
In the book, Mr Thurlbeck, who has been arrested in connection with phone hacking, says: "An edict came down... and it was find out every single thing you can about every single member: who was gay, who had affairs, anything we can use." Mr Thurlbeck told The Independent last night that the order to target the MPs, which involved assigning two politicians each to a group of six reporters, had not originated from inside the paper but instead came from "elsewhere inside News International". He insisted that NOTW staff had been reluctant and there was a "degree of procrastination" before the plan was "suddenly and unexpectedly halted about 10 days later".
Mr Watson, who has received an apology from NI after he was placed under surveillance, said he believed the campaign was nonetheless successful and had contributed to a decision by the media committee not to demand that Ms Brooks give evidence to it in 2010.
He added: "Parliament was, in effect, intimidated. News International thought they could do this, that they could get away with it, that no one could touch them; and they actually did it, and it worked."
Labelling News Corp a "toxic institution", he added: "We conclude that the web of influence which News Corporation spun in Britain, which effectively bent politicians, police and many others in public life to its will, amounted to a shadow state."
Former Plaid Cymru MP Adam Price, who is gay and was a member of the DCMS committee, is described in the book as having been warned by a Conservative colleague that their private lives would be raked over if they called Ms Brooks to give evidence "effectively they would delve into our personal lives in order to punish us".
Hours after publication of the book, Mark Lewis, the lawyer who has doggedly pursued hacking claims, told a press conference in New York that he was investigating allegations of impropriety at Mr Murdoch's US media companies, including Fox News. He said a high-profile trip to America to prepare claims on behalf of victims whose phones were allegedly hacked on US soil had generated a slew of new allegations about wider use of "dark arts" to obtain private information.
He said: "The investigation in the UK began with one claim by one client and look where it is now. While it starts in America with three cases, it seems likely it might end up with more."
The allegations will provide an awkward backdrop for the Murdochs to their appearances before the Leveson Inquiry. Rupert Murdoch, who is the first witness before the inquiry to be scheduled for two days of testimony, will be questioned about practices in his British newspapers and whether he had knowledge of those activities.
Chris Bryant last night confirmed that he would be asking Parliament to investigate the claims that NI carried out targeted intimidation.
Royal editor of The Sun arrested
The royal editor of The Sun was arrested yesterday after News Corp handed over information to detectives investigating alleged illegal payments to public officials.
Duncan Larcombe, 36, who had previously worked as the newspaper's defence editor, was arrested during an early morning raid at his home in Kent on suspicion of conspiracy to corrupt and conspiracy to cause misconduct in a public office.
Officers from Scotland Yard's Operation Elveden also arrested a 42-year-old former member of the armed forces and a woman, 38, at their home in Lancashire. All three were later released on bail.
Mr Larcombe was the paper's royal correspondent from 2005 to 2009 before being appointed defence editor for 14 months. He returned to the royal beat last year and led the newspaper's coverage of the wedding of Kate Middleton and Prince William. He was the second Sun defence editor to be arrested during the police inquiry.
Paul Peachey and Ian Burrell
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/cri...61722.html

[Jan Klimkowski]

On his release from prison, Glenn Mulcaire, the convicted NOTW hacker, allegedly was contracted to give security advice to a private security company, Quest, whose chairman is Lord Stevens, a former Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.

NI intermediaries approached Mr Watson with a "deal" to "give him" former NOTW editor and Downing Street press chief Andy Coulson but that Ms Brooks was "sacred".

This stuff would shame a banana republic.

Unless they're Chiquita (aka United Fruit Company) bananas.....

[Magda Hassan]

Hacking inquiry spreads to Murdoch's Sky News

April 24, 2012 - 12:56PM

• Read later
  

John Ryley of Sky News leaves the High Court after giving evidence to The Leveson Inquiry. Photo: GETTY/Peter Macdiarmid

Britain's broadcast regulator announced it was investigating email hacking by Rupert Murdoch's Sky News, only minutes before the channel's head of news told the Leveson inquiry into media ethics that his station had broken the law and misled a senior judge.
An Ofcom spokesman said that the investigation would centre on "fairness and privacy issues" stemming from Sky News' admission that it had authorised journalists to hack into email accounts to score exclusives.
Sky's head of news, John Ryley, appeared before the Leveson inquiry yesterday ahead of the appearance tomorrow and Thursday of James and Rupert Murdoch.
Advertisement: Story continues below

John Darwin and his wife Anne Darwin faked John's death in a 2002 canoe accident before starting a new life in Panama with the insurance payout. Sky News has admitted hacking Anne Darwin's email account. Photo: AFP/Cleveland Police

Mr Ryley told the inquiry that the chief executive of BSkyB knew that a Sky News reporter was hacking email accounts even though it was "a breach of the criminal law".
Jeremy Darroch was "made aware" last September that reporter Gerard Tubb had been given permission by his managers to hack into the email account of Lianne Smith, who was awaiting trial for killing her children after her husband was convicted of child rape.
Mr Ryley also said it would have been "obvious" to executives that Tubb had hacked the emails of "canoe man" John Darwin in 2008 because of his reports based on what he found in the emails. Darwin had been accused of faking his own death to allow his wife to claim on his life insurance policy.
Mr Ryley has previously defended the actions of Tubb, saying his investigations breached Darwin's privacy but were in the public interest, but Lord Justice Leveson asked him: "What you were doing was not just breaching someone's privacy, it was breaking the criminal law?"
Mr Ryley said: "It was."
Lord Justice Leveson continued: "Where does the [Ofcom code of conduct] give the right to a breach of the criminal law?"
Mr Ryley replied: "It doesn't."
Simon Cole, the managing editor of Sky News at the time, resigned this month when Sky confirmed he had given authorisation to Mr Tubb to hack Darwin's email account in 2008 and also Lianne Smith's emails in 2011.
Mr Ryley acknowledged this month that hacking had happened twice under his watch, a revelation that spread Britain's phone hacking scandal to a new branch of Murdoch's media empire and dealt a further blow to the tycoon's hope of winning full control of Sky News's owner, British Sky Broadcasting Group.
Sky has insisted that the computer breaches were carried out in the public interest, noting that, in one case, it had handed over the hacked information to police.
But legal experts say that such an argument carries little legal weight, and Lord Justice Brian Leveson, the judge charged with investigating Britain's media in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal that erupted at Murdoch's News of the World tabloid, seemed incredulous when quizzing Ryley about the practice Monday.
Lord Leveson said that Sky might get away with the hacking if prosecutors decide not to press charges, "but at the end of the day you've committed a crime".
"I understand," Mr Ryley said.
In a terse exchange with inquiry lawyer David Barr, Mr Ryley said it was "highly unlikely in the future that Sky will consider breaking the law".
"But you're not ruling it out?" Mr Barr asked.
"I am pretty much ruling it out," Mr Ryley said. "There might be an occasion, but it would be very, very rare."
Mr Ryley also admitted that Sky News had misled Leveson's inquiry when it insisted, in a 2011 letter, that the channel had never intercepted communications. He acknowledged that those assurances were false.
"It is very regrettable indeed, and I apologise," he told the inquiry.
Lord Leveson's inquiry was set up following last year's revelations that journalists at Murdoch's top-selling Sunday newspaper News of the World routinely broke the law to stay ahead of the competition. The practice incensed Britain, particularly when it emerged that Murdoch journalists had sought to violate the privacy of a murdered teenager.
The scandal has since spread to Murdoch's The Sun, where many prominent journalists have been arrested on suspicion of bribery, and The Times of London, which is being sued over email hacking.




Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/hacking-inqu...z1svcCJUrH

[Peter Lemkin]

No bread; but lots of circus for the Plebs!...... :joystick:All the Political systems now are SO corrupt one can barely [if at all] work within them! Look how long it takes to get to the SURFACE [not the BOTTOM] of this [or any other scandal you care to mention]. Most go NOWHERE - as those that do the dirt control the inventigations by hook or cook [read money and power]. You think Murdoch's intelligence 'birth' and connections will come out - or how he was 'allowed' to have so much power and 'get out of jail free cards'? - not a chance...... He and his son will get some slapping around and asked some embarrassing questions...but I fear they will never see the jail cells they belong in. Some sacraficial lambs may spend some time behind bars...but the higher-ups...not a chance...nor the corrupt Police, Intelligence, and Politicians that were in the know and on the payroll all along. :mexican:

[Magda Hassan]

Such a very interesting day at the Levison Inquiry. Where to start?

Jeremy Hunt, the secret News Corp emails and the 'absolutely illegal' tip-off

A devastating series of emails shown to the Leveson Inquiry lays bare the secret collusion between Jeremy Hunt, the Culture Secretary, and News Corporation as the company was trying to buy BSkyB.

By Gordon Rayner, and Rowena Mason

2:22PM BST 24 Apr 2012

The media empire controlled by Rupert Murdoch and his son James was given near-daily updates by email from Mr Hunt's office, while the Culture Secretary was in charge of scrutinising the takeover.

News Corp executives were even given private briefings on Mr Hunt's confidential discussions with regulators and other media organisations.

At one point, News Corp's chief lobbyist emailed James Murdoch to say he had "managed to get some info" on what Jeremy Hunt would announce to Parliament the next day "although absolutely illegal!".

The same lobbyist suggested an agreed "plan" between News Corp and the Government would lead to "game over for the opposition".

Mr Hunt was initially not involved in whether to the takeover should be approved. However, he given the quasi-legal job of deciding BSkyB's fate in December 2010 after the Business Secretary, Vince Cable, was stripped of the role for telling two undercover Daily Telegraph reporters he had "declared war on Mr Murdoch".


His job was to remain impartial as he weighed up whether letting News Corp take over BSKyB would hand too much power to the Murdoch family.
However, his close relationship with News Corp is revealed as part of Rupert Murdoch's evidence on the workings of the media industry.
The emails from the computer of Frederic Michel, an expert in managing reputation, who was News Corp's head of public affairs and key lobbyist in Westminster.
Throughout the conversations, Mr Michel refers to his intelligence from "Jeremy" or "JH", though he now says he used this as a "shorthand" term for Hunt's advisers Adam Smith and John Zeff.
Dozens of emails appear to have passed between "JH" and Mr Michel, during the months the Culture Secretary was in charge of the deal.
The existence of the emails was revealed as James Murdoch, the News Corp boss, gave evidence to the Leveson inquiry, the day before his father is due to appear.
James Murdoch defended the actions of his lobbyists, saying Mr Michel was "doing his job as a public affairs executive".
He said he was not convinced all the information from Mr Hunt's office was a correct reflection of the facts.
"I'm not sure how accurate they were anyway. All of this was taken with a grain of salt," he said.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/l...p-off.html

James Murdoch met Cameron 12 times

• Apr 24 2012
  

• Share on print
  

James Murdoch met David Cameron 12 times while he was leader of the opposition, including four meetings also attended by Rebekah Brooks, the Leveson Inquiry has heard.
The media mogul briefly talked to Mr Cameron at a dinner about the removal of Business Secretary Vince Cable's powers to oversee News Corporation's bid to take over broadcaster BSkyB.
Mr Murdoch had drinks with the Tory leader in September 2009 to discuss The Sun's plans to endorse the Conservative Party at the following year's general election, the press standards inquiry was told. He also met Chancellor George Osborne and Foreign Secretary William Hague during the Tories' time in opposition.
After Mr Cameron entered Number 10 in May 2010, Mr Murdoch and his family had lunch with him at the Prime Minister's country retreat, Chequers in Buckinghamshire, in November 2010. Mrs Brooks and her husband, Charlie, hosted a dinner attended by the media mogul and Mr Cameron on December 23 2010.
This was two days after Mr Cable was stripped of his responsibilities for regulating the media after he was caught on tape by undercover reporters claiming to have "declared war" on Rupert Murdoch's News Corp empire.
James Murdoch told the Leveson Inquiry that he and Mr Cameron mentioned what had happened: "He reiterated what he had said publicly, which is that the behaviour had been unacceptable, and I imagine I expressed the hope that things would be dealt with in a way that was appropriate and judicial."
"It was a tiny conversation ahead of a dinner where all these people were there, so it wasn't really a discussion."
The inquiry heard that Mr Murdoch had lunch at Chequers with Tony Blair when he was prime minister in July 2004. He also held a conference call with Mr Blair in October 2005 during which he may have discussed European Commission proposals for regulating broadcasting rights for English Premier League football.
Mr Murdoch had two meetings at 10 Downing Street with then-prime minister Gordon Brown in March and December 2008. He said he could not remember exactly what was discussed, adding: "He would have told me lots of things about the economy and the like."
Mr Murdoch confirmed he was "friendly" with Mr Osborne. He said he had one discussion with the Chancellor about News Corp's bid to take over BSkyB. Mr Murdoch said his conversation about the proposed buy-out of the satellite broadcaster with the Chancellor "would have just been to be grumpy about it taking a long time and being referred to (regulator) Ofcom, which I was very clear in public about at the same time".

Read More http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-new...z1syUOh2Xk

[Jan Klimkowski]

Well well well - Rupert Murdoch's performance at the Leveson Inquiry has been truly extraordinary.

Earlier in the week, Rupert and his brat, James, dumped a Titanic-sized load of manure on past and present governments, by providing documentary evidence of the disgraceful collusion between craven ministers and Murdoch mafioso.

Today, Murdoch admitted there was a cover-up of a criminal culture at the News of the World, and then had the sheer effrontery, the brass neck, to claim that he, the Godfather, was a victim of this criminal culture.

Except there is no plausible deniability available to Rupert or his offspring.

Rupert has ratted out his capos, in the hope of protecting his blood and his adopted consigliere.

His capos have drawn the logical conclusion, and are fighting back.

Rupert Murdoch tells the Leveson inquiry the News of the World was involved in a phone-hacking "cover-up". But former NoW legal manager Tom Crone accuses Mr Murdoch of a "shameful lie".


Source.


On his second day of giving evidence to the inquiry into press standards, the chairman and chief executive of News Corporation said his company was the victim of a "cover-up" at the News of the World, from which he and other executives were "shielded".

The 168-year-old newspaper closed last year amid allegations that its journalists hacked into the voicemail of murdered schoolgirl, Milly Dowler.

Asked by Robert Jay QC why he shut the Sunday tabloid, Mr Murdoch replied: "I panicked. But I'm glad I did."

He added: "This whole business of the News of the World was a blot on my reputation".

But this afternoon Tom Crone, who quit as News International legal manager last August, responded angrily to Mr Murdoch's suggestion that it was he who supervised the "cover-up".

"[Rupert Murdoch's] assertion that I 'took charge of a cover-up' in relation to phone hacking is a shameful lie. The same applies to his assertions that I misinformed senior executives about what was going on," Mr Crone said in a statement.

Statement by Tom Crone

"Since Rupert Murdoch's evidence today about a lawyer who had been on the News of the World for many years can only refer to me, I am issuing the following statement.

"His assertion that I 'took charge of a cover-up' in relation to phone-hacking is a shameful lie. The same applies to his assertions that I misinformed senior executives about what was going on and that I forbade people from reporting to Rebekah Brooks or to James Murdoch.

"It is perhaps no coincidence that the two people he has identified in relation to his cover-up allegations are the same two people who pointed out that his son's evidence to the Parliamentary Select Committee last year was inaccurate.

"The fact that Mr Murdoch's attack on Colin Myler and myself may have been personal as well as being wholly wrong greatly demeans him."

Misinformed and shielded


The media mogul told the Leveson inquiry that he and senior NI executives were not informed - or were misinformed - and were "shielded" from what was going on at the paper.

"I blame one or two people for that, who perhaps I shouldn't name because for all I know they may be arrested yet," he said.

He added: "But there is no question in my mind that maybe even the editor, but certainly behind that, someone took charge of a cover-up which we were victime to and I regret".

Mr Murdoch also revealed that the former editor Colin Myler was not his choice, but Les Hinton's. "I can think of some stronger people," he said. Mr Murdoch said that he trusted Mr Hinton and "delegated" the decision. "I relied on Mr Hinton, who had been with me for 50 years".


'A lot of pain'

The News Corporation CEO stressed that corporate governance as his company had been completely overhauled since the phone-hacking scandal.

"I have been through the whole of News Corporation," he told the inquiry. "I have spent hundreds of millions of dollars. In London alone... we have examined 300 million emails.


I'm guilty of not paying enough attention to the News of the World. Rupert Murdoch


"It led to the arrest and terrible distress of a number of families of journalists who'd been with me many, many years - friends of mine. And it caused me a lot of pain. But we did it."

And he appeared keen to separate what had happened at News of the World from business practices elsewhere at News Corporation. Denying that he adopted a "cavalier" attitude to business risk, he told the inquiry: "I'm guilty of not paying enough attention to the News of the World any time that I was in charge of it, certainly. But to say that it's me, around the world: no."

Resignation calls

His evidence follows a dramatic two days, in which his son, James Murdoch, gave testimony which sparked calls for the Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, to resign, following claims his department provided the Murdoch's with a back-channel to privileged information ahead of their bid for BSkyB ownership.

Instead, his special adviser, Adam Smith, yesterday tendered his resignation in the wake of a series of emails delivered before the inquiry which suggested that he personally acted as a conduit between the two parties.

Early on during the morning session on his second day of evidence, Mr Murdoch announced he did not believe he had ever met Jeremy Hunt and had never had any telephone conversations with him.

He also suggested that the closeness of the relationship between Frederic Michel, News Corporation's senior public affairs executive, and Adam Smith, Jeremy Hunt's special adviser, had been exaggerated.

Waging war

The 81-year-old media mogul's first day of evidence has already lifted the lid on how he has developed and maintained, and sometimes broken, relationships with a succession of prime ministers and senior political figures over 40 years of involvement in British life.

Insisting that he has "never asked a prime minister for anything", he revealed how numerous leaders have attempted to court him and win the support of his publications.

Some of the claims have led to a public spat between himself and Gordon Brown, who called for Mr Murdoch to correct his testimony after he claimed the former prime minister threatened to "wage war" on the Murdoch empire when The Sun switched its allegiance to the Tories in 2009. Today Mr Murdoch said: "I stand by every word of it".

The Inquiry also heard how David Cameron interrupted a family holiday to meet him on a yacht off the Greek island of Santorini in August 2008. "Mr Cameron might have thought stopping in Santorini might impress me. I don't know," Mr Murdoch said.

Of Margaret Thatcher, Mr Murdoch said that their relationship was "respectful".

However he admitted that he met Tony Blair three or four times a year, and had discussions on issues ranging from street crime to healthcare, Europe, Islamic terrorism and Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mr Murdoch is reported to have said: "If our relationship is ever consummated, Tony, then I think we will end up making love like porcupines - very, very carefully."

[Magda Hassan]

Rupert Murdoch 'not fit' to lead major international company, MPs conclude

Select committee also says James Murdoch showed 'wilful ignorance' of extent of phone hacking at News of the World

Read the full select committee repor

• Dan Sabbagh and Josh Halliday
  
• guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 1 May 2012 11.31 BST
  

Rupert Murdoch. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Rupert Murdoch is "not a fit person" to exercise stewardship of a major international company, a committee of MPs has concluded, in a report highly critical of the mogul and his son James's role in the News of the World phone-hacking affair.
The Commons culture, media and sport select committee also concluded that James Murdoch showed "wilful ignorance" of the extent of phone hacking during 2009 and 2010 in a highly charged document that saw MPs split on party lines as regards the two Murdochs.
Labour MPs and the sole Liberal Democrat on the committee, Adrian Sanders, voted together in a bloc of six against the five Conservatives to insert the criticisms of Rupert Murdoch and toughen up the remarks about his son James. But the MPs were united in their criticism of other former News International employees.
The cross-party group of MPs said that Les Hinton, the former executive chairman of News International, was "complicit" in a cover-up at the newspaper group, and that Colin Myler, former editor of the News of the World, and the paper's ex-head of legal, Tom Crone, deliberately withheld crucial information and answered questions falsely. All three were accused of misleading parliament by the culture select committee.
Rupert Murdoch, the document said, "did not take steps to become fully informed about phone hacking" and "turned a blind eye and exhibited wilful blindness to what was going on in his companies and publications".
The committee concluded that the culture of the company's newspapers"permeated from the top" and "speaks volumes about the lack of effective corporate governance at News Corporation and News International".
That prompted the MPs' report to say: "We conclude, therefore, that Rupert Murdoch is not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of major international company."
James Murdoch is described as exhibiting a "lack of curiosity … wilful ignorance even" at the time of the negotiations surrounding the 2008 Gordon Taylor phone-hacking settlement and into 2009 and 2010. The younger son of Rupert Murdoch is criticised for failing to appreciate the significance of the News of the World hacking when the "for Neville" email first became public in 2009 and during subsequent investigations by parliament in February 2010 and a New York Times report in September 2010.
"We would add to these admissions that as the head of a journalistic enterprise, we are astonished that James Murdoch did not seek more information or ask to see the evidence and counsel's opinion when he was briefed by Tom Crone and Colin Myler on the Gordon Taylor case," the select committee said.
Even if James Murdoch did not appreciate the significance of the £700,000 Taylor payout, the committee concluded it was "simply astonishing" that he did not realise that the "one 'rogue reporter' line was untrue" until late 2010, after a previous inquiry by the culture select committee which ran during 2009 and reported in February 2010.
According to minutes published by the committee, the MPs were almost unanimous in their criticism of Hinton, Myler and Crone.
Rebekah Brooks, the former News of the World editor and News International boss, was largely spared from the MPs' criticism. The report said that it would not draw conclusions on evidence to the committee about Milly Dowler, the murdered schoolgirl whose voicemail messages were hacked by the News of the World in 2002, because of an ongoing police investigation into Brooks.
However, the MPs said that Brooks must take responsibility for "the culture which permitted" unethical newsgathering methods over Dowler in 2002. The MPs said: "The attempts by the News of the World to get a scoop on Milly Dowler led to a considerable amount of police resource being redirected to the pursuit of false leads."
Brooks is on police bail after being arrested as part of Scotland Yard's investigation into phone hacking on 17 July 2011 and, separately, on suspicion of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice along with her husband, Charlie, on 13 March this year. Brooks denies knowledge of or involvement in phone hacking or other illegal activities.
The culture select committee charged Hinton with being "complicit" in a cover-up of wrongdoing at Rupert Murdoch's media empire.
MPs said that Myler and Crone deliberately withheld crucial information and answered falsely questions put by the committee.
The executives demonstrated contempt for parliament "in the most blatant fashion", the MPs said, in what they described as a corporate attempt to mislead the committee about the true extent of phone hacking at the News of the World.
The MPs said that Hinton, executive chairman of News International until December 2007, had "inexcusably" mislead the committee over his role in authorising the £243,000 payout to Clive Goodman, the former royal editor convicted of phone hacking in January that year.
"We consider, therefore, that Les Hinton was complicit in the cover-up at News International, which included making misleading statements and giving a misleading picture to the committee," the MPs said.
Crone and Myler were accused of deliberately misleading the MPs on the culture select committee in 2009 and again in 2011 about their alleged knowledge that phone hacking went beyond a single "rogue reporter" at the now-closed Sunday tabloid.
"Both Tom Crone and Colin Myler deliberately avoided disclosing crucial information to the committee and, when asked to do, answered questions falsely," the MPs said in the report.
All three executives now face the prospect of being called to apologise before parliament, in a constitutional move that has not been used for almost half a century.
The report could prove especially problematic for Myler, who is only five months into his editorship at the New York Daily Post.
The select committee said it would table a Commons motion asking parliament to endorse its conclusions about misleading evidence.
News Corp said in a statement: "News Corporation is carefully reviewing the select committee's report and will respond shortly. The company fully acknowledges significant wrongdoing at News of the World and apologises to everyone whose privacy was invaded."