Polished James faces the music

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James Murdoch endured a gruelling session in front of the culture media and sport committee.

The group of MPs claimed they had been misled by previous testimony from News International employees.

Murdoch appeared a polished and prepared witness, though his carefully stage-managed presentation and his coolness under pressure at times made him appear aloof.

The committee’s line of questioning centred on the 10 June 2008 meeting between James Murdoch, then-News of the World legal chief Tom Crone and News of the World editor Colin Myler.

At the meeting, Murdoch provided the authorisation to award a substantial damages settlement to Professional Footballers' Association chief executive, and Glenn Mulcaire phone hacking victim, Gordon Taylor.

Both Crone and Myler, in addition to News International lawyer Julian Pike, were aware a month before the meeting of the full extent of the phone hacking practices within the organisation, as confirmed in their emails and memoranda from the period.

Despite this, Murdoch continued to insist during his evidence that he was not made aware at the June 10 meeting that the phone hacking had extended beyond Mulcaire, or that there were any additional victims aside from Taylor.

He was provided with "sufficient information to negotiate the settlement", but not any additional information regarding the phone hacking scandal.

Pike has testified that Myler and Murdoch had an additional conversation regarding the affair on 27 May, during which he was advised of the now-infamous ‘for Neville’ email, revealing that the scandal was not contained to one ‘rogue reporter’.

Murdoch repeatedly claimed that he "cannot recall" whether the meeting took place, but to the best of his knowledge he was never shown the email, and hence the damages were only being awarded on the basis of the legal advice received related solely to the Taylor case.

Phillip Davies (Con, Shipley) was incredulous as to how Murdoch could not have asked for further information regarding the case when being so "cavalier with money", and accused him of being evasive to the committee’s questioning.

"You seem to be more vague this time that you were last time", said Davies.

Only when pushed by Tom Watson (Lab, West Bromwich East) was Murdoch willing to concede that, if he was truthful in his testimony, then Crone and Myler must by consequence have misled the committee.

Watson asked if Murdoch was familiar with the Mafia term "omerta", which he described as "a group of people bound together by secrecy, who together pursue their group's business objectives with no regard for the law", and whether this could be seen to adequately reflect News International in the UK.

Murdoch dismissed his question as "offensive", to which Watson retorted that he "must be the first mafia boss in history who didn’t know he was running a criminal enterprise".

The committee is now forced to sift for the truth between the contradictory testimonies given by News International staff.

"Just to be clear, if Crone and Myler are telling the truth, you are not telling the truth. If you are telling the truth, Crone and Myler are not telling the truth," declared an exasperated Paul Farrelly (Lab, Newcastle-under-Lyme).

As would become a theme throughout the debate, Murdoch declared that the company’s greatest regret was in being "too trusting" and "relying too heavily on assertions from the policy that the case was closed".

Adrian Sanders (Lib Dem, Torbay) asked if he could be accused of wilful blindness, to which Murdoch replied that the News of the World "was the smallest of four newspapers in News International, which was the smallest company in a much larger company of 50,000 employees".

Since the evidence had come to light, Murdoch claimed, News International had taken every step to get to the bottom of the issue and was committed to building a company of "transparency".

Committee chair John Whittingdale (Con, Maldon) pointed out that this was contradicted by the "aggressive" editorial responses the company had promoted through their media empire, which "labelled this committee a disgrace to Parliament".

While Murdoch agreed they had "pushed back too hard", he once again stressed that the information provided to them by the police indicated that there was no evidence to warrant further investigation.

"If I knew then what I know today," said Murdoch, "the company would have acted differently."

Murdoch claims the company has undertaken an extensive review of editorial practises within its global companies, in addition to establishing an independent management standards committee.

Louise Mensch (Con, Corby) appeared unimpressed by Murdoch’s evidence, declaring he was "coming up empty", and pushing for answers as to why, if the company was committed to a new culture, shocking revelations of malpractice continued to arise.

It was revealed that as recently as May 2010, Tom Crone engaged the company’s lawyers to instigate surveillance of lawyers for plaintiffs in their cases against News International, and that members of the committee themselves had also been tracked.

While Murdoch declared the revelations to be "utterly appalling", his mood remained defiant and composed, and there was a sense of frustration and exhaustion from the committee.

In the end, no pies were thrown, but the phone-hacking scandal nonetheless remains a messy affair.