NEWS CORPORATION EXECUTIVE James Murdoch is to appear before MPs at a House of Commons select committee this morning to answer more questions about the phone hacking scandal.
MPs on the Culture, Media and Sport committee are expected to focus on evidence given by two former senior executives at the now-defunct News of the World that contradicts that which Murdoch gave when he made a high profile appearance in front of the committee alongside his father Rupert in July.
Murdoch junior, News International’s CEO in Europe and Eurasia, has long insisted he was not aware that the practice of phone hacking went beyond one rogue reporter at the News of the World.
However this has been contradicted by evidence given to MPs by former News of the World legal head Colin Myler and the paper’s former editor Tom Crone who said that Murdoch was made aware of the infamous ‘For Neville’ email.
This email indicated that hacking was widespread whilst the News Int executive maintains he was not told about it before he authorised a settlement with the former head of the Professional Footballers’ Association, Gordon Taylor.
Murdoch will appear before MPs at 11am this morning.
The hacking scandal has rocked the British establishment, forcing the closure of the News of the World and the scuppering of Murdoch’s attempt to takeover satellite broadcaster BSkyB.
Two senior police officers at the Metropolitan police force have also had to resign as has Prime Minister David Cameron’s communications chief Andy Coulsen, a former editor of the News of the World who has always maintained he was not aware that journalists were tapping the phones of celebrities and those in the public eye.
The most serious hacking allegation that blew the scandal wide open in the summer releates to the interception of voicemails from the phone of murdered schoolgril Milly Dowler when she still missing in 2002.
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