Man who ‘corrupted our country’: Murdoch ‘not fit to run a company’

MEDIA mogul Rupert Murdoch was branded by MPs today as not “a fit person” to run a major international corporation.

The highly contentious report into the News of the World phone-hacking scandal caused a split in the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee on party lines, with Tory members refusing to back all of its findings.

The committee did agree unanimously that its inquiry had been misled by Mr Murdoch’s News Corp media empire in a “blatant fashion”.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

But Conservative MPs refused to support the report after Labour and Lib Dems pushed through the finding criticising Mr Murdoch by a vote of six to four.

Labour MP Tom Watson, who tabled the amendment, said he was disappointed that the Conservatives had been unwilling to support him.

“These people corrupted our country. They brought shame on our police force and our Parliament. They lied, they cheated, blackmailed and bullied and we should all be ashamed when we think how we cowered before them for too long,” he said.

Conservative Louise Mensch said Mr Watson’s insistence on putting an amendment “wildly outside the scope” of the inquiry had undermined the report’s credibility.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“That will mean it will be correctly seen as a partisan report and will have lost a very great deal of its credibility, which is an enormous shame,” she said.

The committee did agree that three former executives of News Corp’s UK newspaper arm News International - Les Hinton, Colin Myler and Tom Crone - had misled it.

The committee also agreed that suggestions that Mr Murdoch and his son James realised only in December 2010 that hacking was not confined to “one rogue reporter” were “simply astonishing”.

The most contentious element of the report was the section dealing with Rupert Murdoch’s personal responsibility.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“On the basis of the facts and evidence before the committee, we conclude that, if at all relevant times Rupert Murdoch did not take steps to become fully informed about phone hacking, he turned a blind eye and exhibited wilful blindness to what was going on in his companies and publications,” the report said.

“This culture, we consider, permeated from the top throughout the organisation and speaks volumes about the lack of effective corporate governance at News Corporation and News International.

“We conclude, therefore, that Rupert Murdoch is not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of a major international company.”

Mrs Mensch said she would have supported the report as a whole if that conclusion had not been included, even though she voted against other findings.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The committee also split over findings that James Murdoch had shown “wilful ignorance” and that after its “one rogue reporter” defence failed, the company had sought to protect him and other “more senior figures”.

The committee did agree that Mr Hinton, the former News International chairman, misled it when he gave evidence in 2009 about payments made to former royal correspondent Clive Goodman, who was jailed in 2007 for phone hacking.

And it also found that Mr Myler, former News of the World editor, and Mr Crone, the paper’s former legal manager, misled it over their knowledge that other staff were involved in phone hacking.

It said it could now ask the House of Commons to decide whether there had been a contempt of Parliament and what the punishment should be.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“The integrity and effectiveness of the select committee system relies on the truthfulness and completeness of the oral and written evidence submitted,” it said.

“The behaviour of News International and certain witnesses in this affair demonstrated contempt for that system in the most blatant fashion.”

The committee chairman, Conservative John Whittingdale - who by convention did not vote - said it was “a matter of some regret” that they had been unable to produce a unanimous report.

“I am sorry that, in a sense, the strength of the unanimous conclusions is being diluted by the fact that this press conference and attention outside of it will focus on areas where the committee was unable to agree,” he said.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

News Corporation said in a statement that it was “carefully reviewing” the report and would “respond shortly”, adding: “The company fully acknowledges significant wrongdoing at News of the World and apologises to everyone whose privacy was invaded.”

Downing Street said it was now a matter for the House of Commons whether it chose to call a vote on the report’s findings, and declined to say whether Mr Cameron would take part if it did so.

The committee said that, despite the professed willingness of News International to assist its inquiries, it had failed to release documents which would have helped expose the truth.

It said the company “repeatedly made misleading and exaggerated claims” regarding the investigations it “purportedly” commissioned following the arrests of Mr Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“The willingness of News International to sanction huge settlements and damaging wide-ranging admissions to settle civil claims over phone hacking before they reach trial reinforces the conclusion of our 2010 report that the organisation has, above all, wished to buy silence in this affair and to pay to make the problem go away,” it said.

The committee strongly criticised payments - totalling £243,502.08 - made by News International to Mr Goodman in the period following his arrest.

“Despite the legal precedents, however, we are astonished that a man convicted of a criminal offence during the course of his work should be successful in his attempt to seek compensation for his perfectly proper dismissal,” it said.

“Illegally accessing voicemails is wrong and News International should have been willing to stand up in an employment tribunal and say so.”

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

It said that a letter sent by former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks and legal director Jonathan Chapman in November 2009 had referred only to a £40,000 compensation payout.

“Such incompleteness is either the result of an attempt to play down the settlement, or of ignorance about the full extent of the payments or both,” it said.

“None of these scenarios casts Rebekah Brooks and Jonathan Chapman in a positive light: either they should have been more frank or else they should have been better informed.”

The committee said the arrangements which saw News International pay some £365,000 to cover Mr Mulcaire’s legal costs were “every bit as distasteful” and further evidence of the company’s determination “to cover up the extent of the phone-hacking scandal”.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

It said that Mrs Brooks - who was News of the World editor in 2002 when murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler’s phone was hacked - should accept responsibility for those actions and “the culture which permitted them”.

The committee also criticised the failure of the Metropolitan Police and the Crown Prosecution Service for failing to mount a proper investigation after 2007 - singling out former assistant commissioner Mr Yates and Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer.

“Given the extraordinary revelations in the media and in civil court cases in the years that followed, however, they both bear culpability for failing to ensure that the evidence held by the Metropolitan Police was properly investigated in the years afterwards, given all the opportunities to do so, and that the sufficiency of the evidence was not reviewed by the CPS,” it said.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said it was right for Ofcom to look at the question of whether Mr Murdoch was a fit and proper person to hold a broadcasting licence, but declined to give his opinion.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Mr Clegg told BBC Radio 4’s World At One: “I think it is absolutely right that Ofcom looks at that. Those powers of looking at whether the ‘fit and proper person test’ is applicable, don’t just leave them on the statute book, but actually deploy them, and that’s what they are doing right now.

“I don’t think it is for me or any politician to second-guess what Ofcom’s judgment will be.”

Speaking in the West Midlands today, Labour leader Ed Miliband said: “I take extremely seriously what the committee are saying.

“They’ve gone through the evidence, they’ve reached a considered conclusion and I think now that what needs to happen is the regulator, Ofcom - and it is a matter for them - needs to come to its own conclusions.”