As reported in morning spice earlier today, James Murdoch claimed yesterday that two of his former senior News of the World executives had failed to tell him the truth about the scale of phone hacking at the News of the World, and that they had misled parliament. They’ve both since issued statements and called his new evidence “disingenuous at best”.
James Murdoch was addressing British MP’s as part of the continuation into the phone-hacking scandal that had taken place at the now defunct News of the World newspaper.
He “disputed vigorously” the claims from the two executives, former editor Colin Myler and ex-legal manager Tom Crone, that they had informed him at a meeting in June 2008 of the significance of an email indicating the practice was widespread.
The email, now dubbed the “For Neville” email, which contained transcripts of hacked messages, also contained evidence that the practice went further than initially thought.
The two executives issued statements last night standing by their original evidence to parliament stating that their media boss knew the practice went beyond a single “rogue reporter”.
Mr Crone said:
It is regrettable, but 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.
Murdoch went on to insist that he was not shown the email’s full contents or told of its full significance.
At one stage, Labour MP Tom Watson even told Murdoch:
You must be the first mafia boss in history who didn’t know he was running a criminal enterprise.
Mr Myler explained in his statement that the evidence he had originally given was:
Entirely accurate and consistent [and] I stand by my account of the meeting with James Murdoch on June 10, 2008.
These issues are now the subject of a police investigation and the Leveson judicial inquiry. I have every confidence that they will establish the truth.
Murdoch also calmly stated during his evidence yesterday that he would not hesitate to close down The Sun newspaper, one of the UK’s largest tabloids, if evidence emerged that its staff had also been engaged in phone-hacking.
At least we know that one of the stories is true. Just which one of those is true we will have to wait and find out.
[Source: Sky]
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