Australian-born American media magnate and News Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch arrived at his London offices on Sunday from the United States to deal with the phone-hacking crisis that has badly hit his British media empire.
Mr Murdoch closed down the News of the World, which published its last edition on Sunday, and is now trying to salvage the complete the takeover of BSkyB. News Corp. plans to increase its stake from 39.1 per cent to 100 per cent in BSkyB, which owns Sky TV.
Mr Murdoch, 80, who flew into Luton airport, has been photographed reading the last edition of the Sunday tabloid on his way to the News International offices at Wapping in east London.
Labour Party leader Ed Miliband increased the pressure on Prime Minister David Cameron by making it clear on Sunday that his party would force a vote on the BSkyB deal in the House of Commons later this week. He wants the decision on the BSkyB deal to be postponed till the end of the inquiry into the phone-hacking scandal. Calling for Mr Murdoch to drop his bid for the BSkyB takeover, Mr Miliband told the Andrew Marr Show: “The first thing he (Rupert Murdoch) should do is (to) drop the bid for BSkyB because he should recognise that with the cloud hanging over his organisation, it’s not possible, I don’t think, for this bid to go ahead at the current time.” He added that the takeover bid must be referred to the Competition Commission instead and urged Mr Murdoch to sack News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks.
Mr Miliband said he did not want to force a vote in the Commons but Mr Cameron had left him with no option. “I hope he changes his position on this because I don’t want to have to force this to a vote in the House of Commons. He has got to understand that when the public have seen the disgusting revelations that we have seen this week, the idea that this organisation, which engaged in these terrible practices, should be allowed to take over BSkyB, to get that 100 per cent stake, without the criminal investigation having been completed and on the basis of assurances from that self-same organisation — frankly that just won’t wash with the public.”
The LibDems seemed to be in favour of the vote proposed by Mr Miliband as energy secretary Chris Huhne said on Sunday did not rule out supporting the vote. “We’ll obviously have to look at the details of the motion before deciding what should be done in terms of the voting,” he said.
Senior Scotland Yard officer John Yates on Sunday expressed his extreme and massive regret that he did not act to reopen the police investigation into phone hacking allegations two years ago.
In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, the Met police assistant commissioner said he regretted the way he had handled the decision after reviewing the initial police investigation that had led to the conviction of private investigator Glenn Mulcaire and News of the World royal correspondent Clive Goodman in 2007. He said the decision was a “pretty crap one”.
“I didn’t do a review. Had I known then what I know now — all bets are off: I would never have reached this conclusion ... I am accountable and it happened on my watch and it’s clear I could have done more,” Mr Yates said.
Scotland Yard is expected to question News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks sometime this week as the Sunday Times reported that at least nine journalists and three police officers could be jailed over the phone-hacking scandal.
A cabal of about six journalists who acted as “gatekeepers” to Glenn Mulcaire, the private detective who was paid more than £100,000 a year by the newspaper, are now facing arrest. Three other journalists who knew about Mr Mulcaire’s activities also face possible charges,” the report claimed. However, there was no confirmation of this by the police.
The police officers could be arrested in connection with bribes paid to the police for information. “An internal News International report in 2007 had uncovered evidence indicating that hacking was more widespread than previously admitted and that money might have been paid by the paper’s journalists to the police,” the Sunday Times, which is a News International imprint, reported.