Rupert Murdoch and the Corruption of the British Media

[Douglas Caddy]

James Murdoch to Face More Questioning by Lawmakers

The New York Times

By SARAH LYALL and DON VAN NATTA Jr.

November 9, 2011

LONDON — James Murdoch may have embarrassing questions to answer when he returns to Westminster on Thursday to testify before a parliamentary committee investigating the phone hacking scandal that has engulfed the News Corporation. Documents released since his first round of testimony in July have cast doubt on his version of events, while fresh revelations have spilled out about his company’s questionable practices.

Mr. Murdoch, the company’s deputy chief operating officer and the younger son of its chairman, Rupert Murdoch, was a deft and deflecting witness in July, nimbly parrying lawmakers’ questions while maintaining essentially that he had learned only recently how widespread the hacking problem really was. Now, he will be faced with defending himself against mounting evidence that top executives at News International, the company’s British newspaper arm, knew a full three years ago that hacking was pervasive at The News of the World, the tabloid newspaper that the company shut down in July, and that the executives discussed it with Mr. Murdoch at the time.

“Obviously, there are things which the committee wishes to raise with him, particularly in relation to some of the evidence we have received since he testified,” said John Whittingdale, a Conservative member of Parliament and chairman of the committee holding the hearings, the select committee on culture, media and sport.

Mr. Murdoch will also be asked about News International’s behavior after the investigation into its hacking operation intensified. The company acknowledged this week that over the past year and a half, The News of the World had hired a private investigator to conduct covert surveillance of two lawyers representing victims of phone hacking.

The admission was prompted by a report in The Guardian that the investigator, Derek Webb, followed and photographed the lawyers and their families, presumably in the hope of unearthing unsavory information about them and using it to discourage them from pursing their cases.

“While surveillance is not illegal, it was clearly deeply inappropriate in these circumstances,” the company said in a statement. “This action was not condoned by any current executive at the company.”

Mr. Webb told the BBC that he had done such work for The News of the World routinely for eight years, spying on dozens of people, including Prince William; the sports broadcaster Gary Lineker; Lord Goldsmith, the former attorney general; Chelsy Davy, Prince Harry’s former girlfriend; José Morinho, the former manager of the Chelsea soccer team; and the parents of the actor Daniel Radcliffe.

“I was working for them extensively on many jobs throughout that time,” Mr. Webb told the network. “They phoned me up by the day or by the night.”

Recently released News of the World documents, some of them obtained by the parliamentary committee from News International’s former lawyers, Farrer & Company, show that on June 3, 2008, a lawyer warned company executives in a memo that there was “a powerful case that there is (or was) a culture of illegal information access” at the paper.

The lawyer, Michael Silverleaf, also said there was “overwhelming evidence of the involvement of a number of senior journalists” in the paper’s attempts to illegally obtain information about Gordon Taylor, the chief executive of the Professional Footballers’ Association.

Mr. Silverleaf’s memo was written at a time when top News International executives, including James Murdoch, were mulling over how to respond to Mr. Taylor’s claim that his voice mail messages had been repeatedly hacked by the News of the World. Mr. Silverleaf counseled them to handle the case privately. “To have this paraded at a public trial would, I imagine, be extremely damaging” to the company, he said.

Even more potentially worrying for Mr. Murdoch is the growing body of evidence that other executives discussed newly discovered details of phone hacking at the paper with him around the same time.

For example, a May 27 note by Julian Pike, a Farrer & Company lawyer, says that Colin Myler, the editor of The News of the World, spoke to Mr. Murdoch about Mr. Taylor’s claims and that the two men decided to refer it to outside counsel. Another note two weeks later — after Mr. Silverleaf wrote his damning conclusions — says that after meeting Tom Crone, who was the legal manager of News International at the time, Mr. Murdoch “said he wanted to think through options” about how to proceed in the case.

Several days later, Mr. Murdoch authorized News International to pay Mr. Taylor more than £450,000 ($725,000) and legal fees exceeding $322,000. Mr. Pike has said that Mr. Murdoch personally authorized the amount, in exchange for a pledge of confidentiality, to keep the matter from being made public.

Tom Watson, a Labour member of the parliamentary committee and a persistent critic of News International, said that the panel would question Mr. Murdoch further about the Taylor settlement.

“It’s a curious bit about James Murdoch saying he wants to think about his options” — options that included “making a large payment to keep this quiet,” Mr. Watson said.

Mr. Murdoch, 38, has been seen for some time as his 80-year-old father’s heir apparent at the top of the sprawling News Corporation media empire. He got a vote of confidence last week when Chase Carey, News Corporation’s chief operating officer, said he was doing a “good job.”

On Thursday, though, Mr. Murdoch’s credibility may be on the line. He has always maintained that when he authorized the Taylor payment, he was acting on the advice of lawyers and had no reason to believe that hacking had gone beyond the actions of a single “rogue reporter” — Clive Goodman, the former royal reporter at The News of the World, who was jailed in 2007 for intercepting private voice mail messages of members of the royal household. But the lawyers’ notes indicate that Mr. Murdoch had several discussions with other executives who knew that the hacking was more widespread before he agreed to the settlement with Mr. Taylor.

Mr. Myler and Mr. Crone came forward over the summer to dispute Mr. Murdoch’s July testimony, telling the committee that they informed Mr. Murdoch of a damning e-mail marked “for Neville” — a reference to Neville Thurlbeck, The News of the World’s chief reporter, who was given transcripts of illicitly intercepted phone messages.

On May 24, 2008, Mr. Crone sent a letter summarizing the case to Mr. Myler, the paper’s editor, to help him prepare for his “planned chat with chief exec James Murdoch.” In the memo, Mr. Crone describes the “for Neville” e-mail as “fatal to our case.” He adds: “The position is perilous. The damning e-mail is genuine.”

In his July testimony, Mr. Murdoch denied knowing about the “for Neville” e-mail.

The committee also plans to ask about a report by The Guardian last weekend that Rebekah Brooks, the former News International chief executive who was arrested in July on suspicion of phone hacking and illegal payments to police officers, received a severance package of more than $2 million, an office and a car and driver when she resigned from News International.

A spokesman for Ms. Brooks did not return calls seeking comment.

A spokeswoman for News Corporation said she could not comment on Ms. Brooks’s severance agreement or on what James Murdoch did or did not know. “Whatever he has to say, I think it’s appropriate that he says it to the committee on Thursday,” she said.

[Douglas Caddy]

Phone hacking: police have told fewer than one in eight potential victims

Some 638 of 5,800 possible victims have been contacted by Met, highlighting how far the investigation has still to run

By Lisa O'Carroll guardian.co.uk,

Wednesday 9 November 2011 09.13 EST

Fewer than one in eight of the potential News of the World phone-hacking victims have been contacted by Scotland Yard to confirm there is evidence that their voicemails may have been intercepted.

Of the possible 5,800 hacking victims identified so far, 638 have been contacted by officers working on the inquiry to confirm that their phones may have been hacked.

The relatively small number shows how far the investigation has to run before it completes its analysis of about 11,000 pages of notes seized from the home of Glenn Mulcaire, the News of the World investigator at the centre of the phone-hacking scandal.

"It is an ongoing investigation, you can only go as fast as the evidence allows you," said a Met spokesman.

Scotland Yard said those contacted were a mixture of people who its officers had identified and of people who had come forward suspecting their voicemails had been intercepted by Mulcaire.

"To date officers from Operation Weeting have contacted or been contacted by 1,833 people. It has been established that the names of 638 of these 1,833 people have appeared in material being analysed by police and may therefore have been victims of phone hacking," the Met added.

The figures also undermine News International's efforts to settle phone-hacking cases out of court. Last week it launched a voluntary compensation scheme for potential victims, but solicitors have queried what proof a potential victim can supply to the company when the police investigation is ongoing.

Scotland Yard's phone-hacking investigation, Operation Weeting, has been going since January and is staffed by 45 full-time detectives.

In July Met deputy assistant commissioner Sue Akers, who is running the inquiry, revealed that 150 people had been told they were potential victims. The latest figure means they have now contacted four times as many.

Last week, the Guardian revealed that the number of possible victims was now close to 5,800. This is 2,000 more than previously identified by detectives tasked with trawling through 11,000 pages of notes seized from Mulcaire's home.

It is known that Mulcaire kept meticulous notes of his activities, with names of potential targets and of those whose messages he may have intercepted.

A summary of his notes will be published by the Leveson inquiry into press ethics. The names of any News of the World journalists in his notes – the so called "corner names", where he wrote who at the paper had commissioned a particular person to be hacked – will be anonymised, Leveson said this week.

It will be the first time his notes will be discussed in such detail in any public forum since they were seized in 2006.

Leveson said he also intended to ask the police for a summary of the progress of their investigation. Names of suspects will be anonymised.

[Douglas Caddy]

NoW's alleged surveillance targets range from royalty to sport

Prince William, Angelina Jolie and Sir Alex Ferguson among figures private eye Derek Webb was allegedly asked to follow

By James Robinson

guardian.co.uk,

Wednesday 9 November 2011 08.24 EST

The list of people that private investigator Derek Webb claims to have followed on the instructions of the News of the World includes prominent public figures from the worlds of sport, showbusiness, politics, the media and royalty.

They include Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson, former Labour cabinet ministers Alan Johnson and Charles Clarke and Hollywood actors Sienna Miller and Angelina Jolie.

Channel 4 News last night published a list of 153 names Webb was allegedly asked to follow by the now defunct News International title from 2003 to 2011, with the identities of members of the public removed.

The list appears to show that the paper was using Webb to gather information at various times about the people who the News of the World's readers would be most interested in reading about. MediaGuardian has grouped them by industry and listed them alphabetically.

Crime

Maxine Carr

Law

Charlotte Harris

Grace Ononiwu

Newspapers/publishing

Anna Fazackerley (journalist)

Kimberley Fortier (former Spectator publisher)

Simon Hoggart (Guardian journalist)

Zoe Williams (Guardian journalist)

Politics

Alan Johnson MP

Bob Crow

Boris Johnson

Charles Clarke (ex MP)

Charles Kennedy (MP)

Chris Huhne (MP)

Clare Short (ex MP)

David Blunkett (MP)

David Milliband (MP)

Derek Draper

Eric Joyce (MP)

Geoff Hoon (ex MP)

Harriet Harman MP

Hilary Perrin (Labour party official)

Justine Greening (MP)

Lord Archer

Lord Goldsmith

Lord Irvine

Lord Macdonald

Mike Hancock (MP)

Philip Woolas (ex MP)

Shabana Mahmood (MP)

Shahid Malik (ex MP)

Stephen Twigg MP

Tom Watson MP

Sport

Alan Shearer

Alex Ferguson

Andy Gray

Ashley Cole

Benjamin Mwarawairi (footballer)

Chris Coleman

Danny Cipriani

David Beckham

Fernando Torres

Frank Bruno

Frank Lampard

Gary Lineker

Gordon Taylor

Ian Wright

James Cracknell (Olympic rower)

Joanne Armstrong

John Motson

John Terry

Jose Mourinho

Keven Pieterson

Lee Chapman

Mark Bosnich

Michelle Lineker (former wife of Gary Lineker)

Paul Gascoigne

Peter Kenyon

Rio Ferdinand

Simon Jordan

Ted Terry (father of John Terry)

Tony Pulis·

Lord Coe

Showbusiness

Angelina Jolie

Beverly Turner

Daniel Radcliffe

Daniel Radcliffe's parents

Elle MacPherson

Gary Glitter

George Michael

Heather Mills

Lulu

Ms Dynamite

Paul McCartney

Peaches Geldof

Peter Andre

Rik Mayall

Ronan Keating

Sienna Miller

Simon Cowell

Sophie Anderton

Royalty/aristocracy

Chelsy Davy

Duke of Westminster

Earl Spencer

Paul Burrell

Prince Harry

Prince William

Television

Ainsley Harriott

Alan Titchmarsh

Amie Buck (former The X Factor contestant)

Ben Freeman (former soap star)

Chris Tarrant

Connie Fisher (talent show winner)

Delia Smith

Gaby Logan

Gloria De Piero (ex GMTV political correspondent, now an MP)

Gordon Ramsey

Grant Bovey (husband of Anthea Turner)

Jackiey Budden (mother of Jade Goody)

Jane Goldman (wife of Jonathan Ross)

Jessie Wallace

Johnny Vaughan

Leslie Grantham

Nigella Lawson

Paul Ross

Phillip Schofield

Pollyanna Woodward (TV presenter)

Richard Hammond

Richard Madeley

Steve Arnold (former soap star)·

Steve McFadden

Sue Cleaver (soap star)

Sir Trevor McDonald

Vanya Seager (former wife of Robson Green)

[Douglas Caddy]

Phone hacking: News of the World chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck warned hacking was widespread

Detectives investigating phone hacking at have seized a dossier of evidence which apparently shows Neville Thurlbeck warned the paper's editor two years ago that phone hacking was widespread.

Neville Thurlbeck refused to comment on claims that he sent Mr Myler and Mr Crone a memo pinpointing Edmondson

Daily Telegraph

By Mark Hughes, Crime Correspondent

5:56PM GMT 09 Nov 2011

Documents taken from the home of Thurlbeck are said to include a memo he wrote to Colin Myler, the paper’s former editor, and Tom Crone, the ex head of legal, telling them that Ian Edmondson, the news editor, was involved in phone hacking.

The evidence uncovered by the Metropolian Police has emerged as James Murdoch, the chairman of News International, appears before MPs for a second time on Thursday.

It is now alleged that senior News of the World executives failed to act on numerous warnings over the scale of phone hacking under Mr Murdoch's chairmanship of News International.

Detectives hope that Mr Thurlbeck will now become a key prosecution witness and have offered him immunity.

Thurlbeck, 50, is thought to have met with police last Friday where he was asked to consider providing evidence against some of his former colleagues.

However, he has told the Daily Telegraph that he has rejected the offer, believing that the police investigation will ultimately exonerate him.

The offer, however, shows that following the apparent discovery of his dossier detectives now believe that Thurlbeck is potentially more useful as a witness that a suspect.

Thurlbeck, who is currently on police bail after being arrested in April, is believed to have written the memo in July 2009 telling the executives that Edmondson was behind the hacking of Gordon Taylor’s phone.

He is also believed to have provided a taped recording of a conversation between himself and Ross Hall, the junior reporter who transcribed the voicemail which was in the now infamous ‘for Neville’ email.

In the tape Hall is believed to say that it was Edmondson, not Thurlbeck, who had commissioned the hacking.

He is said to have sent the memo two days before Mr Crone and Mr Myler appeared at a parliamentary committee to say there was no evidence that hacking went beyond Clive Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire, the reporter and private investigator who were jailed in January 2007.

Mr Crone and Mr Myler are already facing claims they were told that hacking went wider than a lone “rogue reporter” in 2008 when Michael Silverleaf QC sent a letter saying there was “overwhelming evidence” that other reporters were involved.

The Daily Telegraph has now been told that, as well as being told by external lawyers, the News of the World executives were apparently told by their own chief reporter that hacking was being orchestrated by the news desk and, in particular, Edmondson.

The fact that Thurlbeck’s warning was sounded during James Murdoch’s watch will intensify pressure on the News International chief.

He is due to give evidence to MPs tomorrow. He is now likely to be asked whether Thurlbeck’s dossier was ever mentioned to him.

Contacted by the Daily Telegraph, Thurlbeck refused to comment on claims that he sent Mr Myler and Mr Crone a memo pinpointing Edmondson.

On the topic of potential immunity, he said: “I have told the police that while I fully understand and respect the reason for their request, it is my opinion that a detailed and forensic inquiry into my working methods will fully exonerate me. On that basis, I will not be giving evidence for the Crown.”

Spokesmen for the Metropolitan Police and News International both refused to comment.

[Douglas Caddy]

Ten questions for James Murdoch

James Murdoch is to face MPs' questions over what he knew and when during the News of the World phone-hacking scandal

By Dan Sabbagh

guardian.co.uk,

Wednesday 9 November 2011 17.37 EST

James Murdoch, son of Rupert Murdoch and Chairman and Chief Executive of News Corporation is to face MPs questions over the phone-hacking scandal.

1 Clive Goodman, the jailed former royal reporter, wrote in March 2007 to your predecessor that phone hacking "was widely discussed at the daily editorial conference". Why did you not ask to review the Goodman file?

2 Why did you not ask to see Michael Silverleaf's opinion of June 2008 which said there was "a culture of illegal information access" at the News of the World after you were briefed on it orally?

3 Do you believe internal evidence about phone hacking such as the Goodman letter and the Silverleaf opinion was withheld from you? And by whom?

4 Why do you maintain you were not told about the "for Neville" email when both Colin Myler and Tom Crone say it was the sole reason for asking you to authorise the six-figure settlement of the Gordon Taylor case?

5 Why did you not ask why Mulcaire had admitted in court to hacking people such as Elle MacPherson and Simon Hughes who would not have been of interest to Goodman who was put on trial with him? Did those targets not suggest to you that hacking may be more widespread?

6 What were you told were the reasons for reaching a £1m settlement with Max Clifford in March 2010? Did you ask why it was necessary to settle that case.

7 When the Guardian first reported in July 2009 that "thousands" of mobile phones had been targeted, News International responded with an aggressive denial of the allegations. Why did you allow News International to make that statement?

8 Why were NI employees allowed to ask a private investigator to conduct surveillance of the lawyers bringing cases against your company? Why did you not know about a practice you say you do not condone?

9 Did you authorise the severance payment for Rebekah Brooks, which is understood to be in excess of £1.7m? Why do executives who resign and are subsequently arrested deemed worthy of a severance payment?

10 Do you believe you were sufficiently curious about what was going on at the company you ran? Does this make you a fit and proper person to run a media company?

[Douglas Caddy]

Neville Thurlbeck rejects request to help phone-hacking investigation

Former News of the World chief reporter was asked by Scotland Yard to give evidence against News International

By Roy Greenslade

guardian.co.uk,

Wednesday 9 November 2011 15.30 EST Article

The News of the World's former chief reporter, Neville Thurlbeck, has rejected a request by Metropolitan police officers to help in their phone-hacking investigation.

Scotland Yard asked him whether or not he would be prepared to give evidence against News International, but he has rejected the request.

It is known that the police took key documents from Thurlbeck's home when he was taken into custody on 5 April. Among them is said to be a copy of a 2009 memo which Thurlbeck says he sent to the paper's former editor, Colin Myler, and its legal manager, Tom Crone, in which he made serious allegations about a News of the World executive's involvement in hacking.

The dossier is also said to contain a tape-recorded phone call made by Thurlbeck to Ross Hindley, the junior reporter who transcribed the "For Neville" email that has been the focus of the hacking investigation. Thurlbeck had tracked Hindley down to Peru. During the call, which he taped, he is believed to have made allegations against the same executive. The police now have a transcript of that call.

This latest twist in the saga comes the day before the News International chairman, James Murdoch, is to appear before the Commons media select committee for a second time. He has been recalled because of discrepancies between his previous account of a crucial meeting with Myler and Crone about the "For Neville" email, and their version of events.

Ever since that email emerged in public, Thurlbeck has said that he was unaware of its provenance. He says it was read to him over the phone and that he never saw or read the contents.

He has broken cover after meeting two senior Met officers last Friday. Though they were not part of the Operation Weeting team devoted to investigating the hacking affair, he claims they were empowered to offer him a deal in which he might have obtained some form of immunity from prosecution in return for giving them evidence.

He was told that the offer, itself contingent on the information being deemed to be in the public interest, was made under the Serious Organised Crime Act 2005. In such cases, the final decision is taken by the Director of Public Prosecutions.

It is understood that Thurlbeck refused the offer because he was convinced he could prove his innocence and wished to clear his name in an above-board fashion.

The heart of his claim is that his warnings about hacking activities stretching beyond the so-called "rogue reporter" – the ex-News of the World royal editor Clive Goodmnan – were ignored by the paper's senior executives.

Thurlbeck is one of 16 people arrested on suspicion of taking part in phone hacking, most of whom have been placed on bail until March next year. He spent 21 years at the News of the World, as a reporter and, briefly as news editor.

In explaining why he rejected the police offer to give evidence against his former colleagues, Thurlbeck said: "I have informed Scotland Yard that while I fully understand and respect the reason for their request of me to give evidence for the crown in any prosecution arising from Operation Weeting, it is my opinion that a detailed and forensic inquiry into my working methods by what is a highly-professional police unit will fully exonerate me. So, on that basis, I have declined their offer."

In September, Thurlbeck lodged a claim for unfair dismissal against News International after he was sacked. The company has stopped paying his legal fees.

He has spoken about the News of the World newsroom's working methods, saying "reporting teams operated rather like IRA cells". He said: "We were assigned to stories and given specific details, but we didn't know where the tips came from."

He told of an occasion when his team were told by the news desk exactly when and where they would find a person they were required to interview or photograph. "This information was remarkably detailed," he said. "In many cases, reporters would be sent by an executive to intercept people at very specific locations and they would be taken by surprise.

"They were often baffled how we had found them and to be honest, so were we. We just assumed the executive had received a tip-off. But we wouldn't know for certain as they kept their cards very close to their chest."

[Douglas Caddy]

Headline: Murdoch junior is prepped for 'assault on credibility'

The Independent

By James Cusick and Cahal Milmo

November 10, 2011

"James Murdoch is being prepped by a litigation specialist to help explain why he failed to tell MP's of discussions he had with the News of the World editor on the 'options' they faced over phone hacking....

"He's facing another tough - and no doubt long - session before the Media Select Committee today. To liven things up if you're watching at home, give yourself a point if he uses any of these phrases:

"Did not have direct knowledge

No recollection

Can you repeat?

Difficult for me to comment

Regret

Financial quantum

Not in a position to answer

Humble

Before I was involved

Happy to supply answer

Co-operate fully

Matters for current criminal investigation

Not to my knowledge

Approved threshold

Procedural question

Due process

Transparency

If I can clarify

Documentary information"

[Steve Knight]

O.M.F.G!

He did NOT just say THAT!!

"Mr Murdoch, I believe you are the first Mafia Boss in history that did not know he was running an illegal empire." - Tom Watson, MP.

PMSL!! :lol:

[Douglas Caddy]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/blog/2011/nov/10/phone-hacking-james-murdoch-live

[Douglas Caddy]

O.M.F.G!

He did NOT just say THAT!!

"Mr Murdoch, I believe you are the first Mafia Boss in history that did not know he was running an illegal empire." - Tom Watson, MP.

PMSL!! :lol:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/phone-hacking/8881127/Phone-hacking-James-Murdoch-finds-mafia-comparison-offensive.html

[Douglas Caddy]

James Murdoch: Myler and Crone's testimony to MPs 'misleading'

News Corp heir apparent tells MPs that former News of the World editor and lawyer did not tell him about extent of phone hacking

By James Robinson

guardian.co.uk,

Thursday 10 November 2011 11.42 EST

News Corporation's third in command, James Murdoch, has turned his fire on two of the most senior former News of the World executives, telling MPs they had failed to tell him the truth about the scale of phone hacking at the paper and that they had effectively misled parliament.

Murdoch, facing two and a half hours of questioning from MPs, repeatedly denied seeing or being told about evidence that hacking went beyond a single journalist at the paper. That evidence included an email sent to the paper's former chief reporter, Neville Thurlbeck, containing transcripts of hacked messages from PFA chief executive Gordon Taylor's phone, and a warning from News International's QC Michael Silverleaf that there was "a culture of illegal information access" at the paper.

Murdoch told MPs on the Commons culture, media and sport select committee, which has been investigating phone hacking for more than four years, that the paper's former editor Colin Myler and its head of legal Tom Crone has failed to tell him about that evidence.

"If [Myler] had known that there was wider-spread criminality I think he should have told me," he said. "We have to rely on these people and we have to trust them."

Murdoch, who was running News of the World publisher News International when a £725,000 settlement was paid to Taylor in 2008, added: "The information I received about the Taylor case was incomplete. The full extent of knowledge within the business … was not made clear to me."

Tom Watson MP asked Murdoch if he had misled the committee on his previous appearance in July.

"No I did not," Murdoch said.

"I believe this committee was given evidence by individuals either without full possession of the facts, or now, it appears in the process of my own discovery in trying to best understand what happened here, it was economical."

Watson asked if Crone and Myler had misled the committee. Murdoch replied: "Certainly in the evidence they gave to you in 2011 with respect to my own knowledge, I believe it was inconsistent and not right, and I dispute it vigorously.

"I believe their testimony was misleading and I dispute it."

In their own evidence to the culture committee in September, both Crone and Myler insisted they told Murdoch about the existence of the "for Neville" email and this was the reason he agreed to settle Taylor's case.

It has since emerged that Michael Silverleaf QC, News International's barrister, was asked to prepare a legal opinion, which stated that the company was certain to lose the Taylor case. Crone also warned Myler in a briefing note prepared in advance of a 2008 meeting with Murdoch to discuss the case that the company's position was "very perilous".

Murdoch insisted he had not been told about the contents of any of those documents in any detail.

Referring to a conversation between Myler and Farrar & Co, the law firm acting for News International at the time, during which he had talked about "a cancer" at the News of the World, Murdoch said. "It shows perhaps he [Myler] was worried about raising the issue with me because I would have said 'get rid of them all, get rid of the cancer'. I think that speaks volumes."

He added that Myler and Crone had at first acted without his authorisation by trying to come to a settlement with Taylor in 2008.

Murdoch, who is deputy chief operating officer at News Corp, the media conglomerate his father Rupert founded and chairs, said he had subsequently authorised Myler and Crone to settle with Taylor following a meeting on 10 June 2008, at which he was told an email existed which showed hacking had been commissioned by the News of the World.

Just as he did at his last appearance before MPs in July, however, Murdoch said that he was not told those instructions had been issued by journalists other than former News of the World royal editor Clive Goodman, who had already been jailed for phone hacking.

In a surprise twist, which cast further doubt on Murdoch's recollection of events, Labour MP Tom Watson revealed he had spoken to Thurlbeck personally and that the former News of the World journalist had claimed to him that Murdoch had been shown the "for Neville" email.

The Labour MP described a conversation with Thurlbeck immediately before the committee hearing on Thursday morning, during which he told him Crone confirmed to him that the "for Neville" email had been shown to Murdoch.

Watson said Thurlbeck had recalled that Crone had told him: "I'm going to have to show this to James Murdoch."

Thurlbeck expressed concerns he would lose his job. Watson also said that Crone had subsequently told Thurlbeck he had shown Murdoch the email, but had reassured him he would keep his job with the words: "It's OK. We're going to settle."

Murdoch responded by telling Watson he could not comment on what conversations Thurlbeck may have had with Crone.

He also said several times that he could not remember an earlier 27 May meeting at which he discussed the Taylor settlement with Myler, a note about which was taken by Julian Pike of Farrer & Co.

Murdoch said several times that neither he nor Myler could remember the 27 May meeting or discussion taking place, but that he could not rule out the possibility that it had happened.

He also refused to rule out closing the Sun newspaper down if it could be shown that hacking had taken place at the News of the World's sister paper and condemned the decision to use private investigators to follow lawyers acting for hacking victims in civil cases.

Murdoch also said Rebekah Brooks, who resigned as chief executive of News International in July 2009 when the hacking scandal was at its height, was responsible for negotiating a settlement worth a reported £1m with publicist Max Clifford in March 2010 at a time when the paper was still denying hacking was widespread. "Mrs Brooks did discuss the arrangement [with me] … but not in any great detail," he said.

He displayed contrition for News International's response to the Guardian's initial revelations in July 2009 about the extent of hacking at the paper. "The company pushed back too hard," he said. "At various times during this process – and I am sorry for this – we moved into an aggressive defence too quickly."

He added News International had displayed a "tendency for a period of time to react to criticism or allegations as hostile or [motivated] commercially or politically".

Reminded that the company had responded furiously after MPs published a 2009 report that was critical of News International, Murdoch said: "The company at the highest level should have had a good look at the evidence that was given to you and followed that trail wherever it led."

Murdoch denied he had acted incompetently by failing to get to grips with phone hacking at an earlier stage, however. "No, I don't think it shows me to be incompetent … I behaved reasonably given the information I had," he said.

[Douglas Caddy]

Can you really believe James Murdoch's hacking story?

By Roy Greenslade

Guardian

November 10, 2011

Let's imagine that James Murdoch spoke the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth to the Commons select committee. I know it's a stretch, but stay with me.

Here's his story. He was appointed as chairman of News International in 2007 after the hacking crisis was over.

Though he ran News Int, he had far greater responsibilities on behalf of the parent company, News Corp.

As for the News of the World, though it was one of Britain's best-selling newspapers, it was but a pipsqueak in financial terms compared to the company's other assets.

Before Murdoch arrived, a post-hacking editor, Colin Myler, had been appointed to with the central task of cleaning house.

Myler could draw on the offices of a vastly experienced legal manager, Tom Crone. So Murdoch expected them to handle matters that were way below his radar.

When it came to hacking problems, most obviously the legal action by Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Footballers Association, it was for them, to use Murdoch's phrase, to drive the agenda.

So Myler and Crone dealt alone with the paper's legal advisers, the solicitor, Julian Pike of Farrers, and the barrister, Michael Silverleaf QC.

One day in 2008, 10 June to be exact, Myler and Crone arrived in Murdoch's office to obtain authorisation for a large payment - a very large, six figure payment - to settle the Taylor action.

Murdoch was not shown any documents. He was not told about the contents of a damning legal opinion by Silverleaf. He was not informed about Myler's and Crone's contacts with Pike.

Not only that. He didn't ask. It didn't occur to him question why the settlement was necessary, nor to ask why Taylor's phone had been hacked. It also never struck him to wonder why his senior executives were still maintaining the public stance that hacking had been confined to a "rogue reporter".

The only discussion was about the level of damages and costs that the company should pay. The meeting then concluded after 15 minutes. Job done.

Aside from that, he can recall no further conversations with Myler about the matter. Over and over, question after question from the MPs, he stuck firmly to that version of events.

He was squeaky clean but Myler and Crone had misled the committee. Indeed, Myler had failed in his responsibilities because he had been appointed specifically "to bring the newspaper forward".

And Murdoch put him right in the frame by saying: "If he had known that there was wider spread criminality I think he should have told me."

Murdoch also put clear blue water between himself and Crone over the decision to put lawyers acting for hacking victims under surveillance by a private investigator.

To use his convoluted phrasing, "it was not a corporate activity that was condoned." He agreed it was unacceptable and despicable, and he laid the blame squarely on Crone and one other former member of News International staff.

In other words, after virtually three hours before the committee, he was unwavering in his defence of his propriety. There had been sins, for which he was duly sorry, but they were not his.

However, early on in the questioning Murdoch did concede that he was aware - from the voicemail transcripts - that the paper had been involved in hacking Taylor's phone.

That was, of course, an illegal act (ie, a crime). That admission may well come back to haunt him.

Finally, though the headlines may well be devoted to Tom Watson's jibe about Murdoch acting like a Mafia boss (early examples here and here and here) it paled beside the Asda moment raised by Philip Davies.

After explaining that he used to work for the supermarket chain (owned by the giant US company, Walmart) Davies registered his incredulity that Murdoch could have authorised the payment of more than £500,000 (to Taylor) without inquiring deeply into the reasons.

"It all seems so cavalier to me," said Davies. "You agree to settle cases with no real cap but a ballpark figure. You agree that a company should have a legal opinion, but you don't even ask to see the opinion when it is written."

And there, in a couple of sentences, is surely the puncturing of the Murdoch defence. What kind of company boss is that fails to show any curiosity about a massive payment in controversial circumstances? A deceitful one or an incompetent one?

[Douglas Caddy]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/phone-hacking/8881159/Tom-Watson-reveals-new-phone-hacking-evidence.html

[Douglas Caddy]

James Murdoch claims truth about phone-hacking was hidden from him

War of words erupts as two ex-News of the World executives, Colin Myler and Tom Crone, refuse to take the blame

By James Robinson

guardian.co.uk,

Thursday 10 November 2011 15.49 EST

James Murdoch was embroiled in a rancorous war of words with two of his former senior News of the World executives after he told MPs during a marathon questioning session that they had failed to tell him the truth about the scale of phone hacking at the paper and had misled parliament.

In a two-and-a-half hour session that saw a periodically contrite Murdoch fighting for his corporate reputation and his status as Rupert Murdoch's heir apparent, the 38-year-old repeatedly denied being told three years ago about evidence that hacking went beyond a single journalist at the paper.

But his account was quickly contradicted by both those executives, former NoW legal head Tom Crone and ex-editor Colin Myler. Crone issued a statement on Thursday night describing Murdoch's evidence as "disingenuous". Myler said he stood by his own account of events.

Murdoch had earlier emerged battered but still standing from the dramatic session before the culture and media committee during which:

• He refused to rule out the possibility that News International would close the Sun if evidence of hacking emerged.

• An MP claimed that all members of the committee had been placed under surveillance by News International.

• Murdoch was compared to a mafia boss who presided over a culture of "omerta".

He told MPs that Crone and Myler had failed in 2008 to tell him about evidence that proved at least three other NoW reporters were involved in hacking.

That evidence included an email sent to the paper's then chief reporter, Neville Thurlbeck, containing transcripts of hacked messages from PFA chief executive Gordon Taylor's phone, and a warning from News International's QC Michael Silverleaf that there was "a culture of illegal information access" at the paper.

Murdoch, who was running NoW publisher News International when a £725,000 settlement was paid to Taylor in 2008, added: "The information I received about the Taylor case was incomplete. The full extent of knowledge within the business … was not made clear to me. I believe this committee was given evidence by individuals either without full possession of the facts … or it was economical."

Asked if Crone and Myler had misled the committee, Murdoch replied: "It follows that I do. I believe it was inconsistent and not right, and I dispute it vigorously. I believe their testimony was misleading and I dispute it."

In their evidence to the committee in September, Crone and Myler insisted they told Murdoch about the existence of the "for Neville" email and this was why he agreed to settle Taylor's case.

In a withering statement, Crone said: "I can perfectly understand why James Murdoch felt the need to discredit Colin Myler and myself. The simple truth is that he was told by us in 2008 about the damning email and what it meant in terms of wider News of the World involvement.

"It seems he now accepts he was told of the email, of the fact that it contained transcripts of voicemail interceptions and that those interceptions were authorised by the News of the World.

"Perhaps Mr Murdoch could explain who he thought was doing the authorising at the News of the World? At best, his evidence on this matter was disingenuous."

Myler also hit back at his former boss, insisting: "My evidence to the select committee has been entirely accurate and consistent. I stand by my account of the meeting with James Murdoch on 10 June 2008.

"I have been clear throughout about the significance of the 'For Neville' email, as evidenced in my opening statement to the committee when I appeared before them in 2009."

Murdoch distanced himself from the decision last year to settle a similar hacking case brought by Max Clifford worth around £1m at a time when the paper was still denying hacking was widespread. He said the former chief executive Rebekah Brooks had negotiated that payment. "Mrs Brooks did discuss the arrangement [with me] … but not in any great detail," he said.

It emerged last month that Silverleafhad warned that the company was certain to lose the Taylor case and that Crone had told Myler in a note prepared in advance of a 2008 meeting with Murdoch to discuss the case that the company's position was "very perilous". Murdoch insisted he had not been told about the contents of any of those documents in any detail.

He said he authorised Crone and Myler to settle with Taylor following a meeting on 10 June 2008 at which he was told an email existed which showed hacking had been commissioned by the NoW.

Just as he did at his last appearance before MPs, however, Murdoch said he was not told those instructions had been issued by journalists other than the former NoW royal editor Clive Goodman, who had already been jailed for phone hacking.

In a twist that cast further doubt on Murdoch's recollection of events, Tom Watson revealed he had spoken to Thurlbeck who told him Murdoch had been shown the "for Neville" email. The Labour MP described a conversation with Thurlbeck immediately before the committee hearing, during which Thurlbeck said Crone had confirmed to him that the "for Neville" email had been passed to Murdoch. Watson said Thurlbeck had recalled that Crone had told him: "I'm going to have to show this to James Murdoch."

Watson said Crone had subsequently told Thurlbeck he had done so, but had reassured him he would keep his job with the words: "It's OK. We're going to settle." Murdoch told the committee: "I cannot comment on what Mr Thurlbeck and Mr Crone discussed."

Watson also accused Murdoch of overseeing a mafia-style organisation that obeyed a code of "omerta", an allegation Murdoch described as "offensive". The Tory MP Louise Mensch went on to make the remarkable claim that all the members of the committee had at one time been placed under surveillance by NI.

Murdoch, meanwhile, refused to rule out closing the Sun down if it could be shown that hacking had taken place.

He apologised to MPs for the company's decision to use a private investigator to place MPs under surveillance – which he said he learned about a few weeks ago – and said that was "just not acceptable".

He also showed contrition for News International's response to the Guardian's initial revelations in July 2009 about the extent of hacking at the paper. "The company pushed back too hard," he said. "At various times during this process – and I am sorry for this – we moved into an aggressive defence too quickly."

But he denied he had acted incompetently by failing to get to grips with phone hacking at an earlier stage. "No, I don't think it shows me to be incompetent … I behaved reasonably given the information I had," Murdoch said.

On Thursday night the charman of the committee, John Whittingdale, said he would "want to see any evidence" that MPs on the committee have been followed.

[Douglas Caddy]

James Murdoch Denies Misleading Parliamentary Panel

The New York Times

By ALAN COWELL and SARAH LYALL

November 10, 2011

LONDON — Testifying on Thursday for a second time before a British parliamentary inquiry into the phone hacking affair besieging his company, James Murdoch, News Corporation’s deputy chief operating officer, calmly declared that he had not misled the committee at his earlier appearance in July. And he all but accused two former underlings, whose accounts directly contradicted his on a crucial point, of lying.

Mr. Murdoch appeared confident and virtually unflappable, repeating over two and a half hours of intense questioning that in 2008, no one told him of the growing body of evidence that phone hacking was widespread at the company’s now-defunct tabloid, the News of the World.

“None of these things were made available to me or discussed with me,” Mr. Murdoch said. Asked if he had given misleading testimony about what he knew and when he knew it, Mr. Murdoch was adamant in his denial.

“No, I did not,” he said.

He did appear to alter one aspect of his previous account. In July, he said he had no knowledge in 2008 of an e-mail containing damning evidence that phone hacking at the paper was not limited to one journalist or one incident, as the company asserted at the time. On Thursday, he acknowledged that in fact, he had been made aware of the existence of the e-mail, but insisted that no one told him what it actually contained.

It held the transcript of a hacked cellphone message, marked “For Neville,” apparently a reference to the paper’s chief reporter, Neville Thurlbeck.

Rather, Mr. Murdoch accused two former executives of News International, the British media subsidiary of News Corporation, of getting the account wrong when they told the committee earlier that they had made him aware of the e-mail’s contents.

“Certainly in the evidence they gave to you in 2011 in regard to my own knowledge — I believe it was inconsistent and not right, and I dispute it vigorously,” Mr. Murdoch said. Referring to the former executives, Colin Myler, then the News of the World’s editor, and Tom Crone, then its lawyer, he added: “I believe their testimony was misleading, and I dispute it.”

At one point, a committee member, Tom Watson, angrily compared the Murdoch media empire to a mafia family bound together by a vow of silence — omertà.

“You must be the first Mafia boss in history who didn’t know he was running a criminal enterprise,” Mr. Watson snapped.

Mr. Murdoch did not rise to the bait, but instead responded with a pained expression. “Mr. Watson. Please. I don’t think that’s appropriate,” he said.

After the hearing, John Whittingdale, the committee chairman, said the panel would now draw up a report for Parliament, possibly by the end of the year, and it would be up to the House of Commons to determine any sanctions as a result of the panel’s findings.

Mr. Murdoch was a similarly deft witness in July when he appeared before the parliamentary committee investigating the phone hacking scandal that was riveting the country. Sitting alongside his 80-year-old father then, along with family members and legal representatives, he deflected lawmakers’ questions, maintaining that he had learned only recently how widespread the hacking problem really was.

On Thursday, he returned alone to Parliament to face much more skeptical questioning from the panel. But his calm did not crack as he defended himself against mounting evidence that he and top executives at News International knew three years ago that hacking was not limited to a single rogue reporter jailed a year earlier, but was pervasive at The News of the World, which the company shut down in July as the scandal exploded, shortly before Mr. Murdoch’s first round of testimony.

As the hearing began on Thursday and Mr. Murdoch was invited to revisit that testimony, he asked to comment about his father’s remark then that he had been humbled by the affair. “I think the whole company is humbled,” he said, adding he was “very sorry” and adding that he wanted to ensure that such events “do not happen again.”

Much was riding on how Mr. Murdoch, 38, handled the lawmakers’ questioning, including his personal credibility and the health of the News Corporation media empire. The hacking scandal has tarnished the corporation, rocked its stock price, scuttled its $12 billion bid to take over the satellite giant British Sky Broadcasting, and added to strains between Mr. Murdoch and his father. At least 16 former employees of The News of the World have been arrested, and a series of executives up the corporate ladder — including the publisher of The Wall Street Journal and chief executive of Dow Jones, Les Hinton — have resigned.

His testimony certainly did no damage to News Corporation’s share price, which rose 1.4 percent in trading in the United States, to $17.19, up from its Aug. 8 low of $14.01, as the scandal was at a peak.

The hearings have a role beyond the fate of Mr. Murdoch and that of his company. They are seeking to get to the bottom of to a scandal that has reached deep into British society, raising questions of intimate and self-serving ties linking the media, the political elite and the police.

The panel came to the hearing armed with recently released News of the World documents related to a case central to the doubts about Mr. Murdoch’s earlier testimony: that of Gordon Taylor, the chief executive of the Professional Footballers’ Association. In 2008, after Mr. Taylor claimed that his voice mail messages had been repeatedly hacked by the tabloid, Mr. Murdoch authorized News International to pay him more than £450,000 ($725,000) and legal fees exceeding $322,000.

In his July testimony, Mr. Murdoch maintained that the episode had done nothing to alter his understanding that a single reporter, Clive Goodman, the former royal reporter at The News of the World, had engaged in phone hacking in 2007.

On Thursday, he said that “no documents were shown to me or given to me” at a crucial meeting in 2008 with Colin Myler, who was editor of The News of the World at the time, and Tom Crone, who was its legal manager.

“The meeting, which I remember quite well, was a short meeting, and I was given at that meeting sufficient information to authorize the increase of the settlement offers that had been made” to Mr. Taylor, he said. “But I was given no more than that.”

In July, Mr. Murdoch had testified that he had been given an oral briefing on the Taylor case and “did not get involved directly” in the negotiations on the settlement. He denied that the payment was motivated by a desire to keep the matter from becoming public, saying that the aim instead was pragmatic, to avoid damages and legal costs from a judgment at trial. In that testimony, he declined to discuss releasing Mr. Taylor from the agreement’s confidentiality clause.

But after he testified, Mr. Myler and Mr. Crone contradicted Mr. Murdoch’s account, saying they had had direct conversations with him about evidence of broader hacking during the time the Taylor case was being handled.

They said Mr. Murdoch knew when settling the lawsuit about the e-mail with the transcript of the hacked cellphone message marked “For Neville.”

”In fact, we did inform him of the ’for Neville’ e-mail which had been produced to us by Gordon Taylor’s lawyers,” Mr. Myler and Mr. Crone said in a statement after Mr. Murdoch’s July testimony.

The panel has seen a memo dated June 3, 2008, from a lawyer with News International’s counsel at the time, Farrer & Company, warning executives that there was “a powerful case that there is (or was) a culture of illegal information access” at the paper. The lawyer, Michael Silverleaf, also said there was “overwhelming evidence of the involvement of a number of senior journalists” in the paper’s attempts to illegally obtain information about Mr. Taylor.