Former News Corp Executives Accused of Misleading U.K. Parliament
September 14 2016 - 05:50PM
Dow Jones News
LONDON—A panel of British lawmakers accused two former News Corp
executives of misleading Parliament when the pair were questioned
over the phone-hacking scandal at the firm's now-closed News of The
World tabloid, and exonerated a third one.
A report issued by the panel on Wednesday accused Colin Myler,
the newspaper's last editor before it was closed in 2011, and Tom
Crone, the News of the World's top lawyer, of "answering questions
falsely" about their knowledge of involvement by employees in
phone-hacking and other wrongdoing, according to the report by
Parliament's Privileges Committee. Messrs. Myler and Crone were
among senior News of World executives who testified to the Culture,
Media and Sport committee in 2009 and 2011 about how widespread
phone-hacking had been at the paper.
The lawmakers cleared a third ex-News Corp executive, the former
head of News Corp.'s U.K. division, Les Hinton, of misleading
Parliament. They also exonerated the U.K. division, then known as
News International.
Messrs. Myler and Crone denied giving misleading testimony. The
two men also disputed the findings of the committee, a panel of
lawmakers that governs the workings of the British Parliament.
The nonjudicial committee recommended to Parliament Mr. Myler
and Mr. Crone be formally admonished. Parliament theoretically has
the power to impose fines and even terms of imprisonment for lying
to Parliament, though those powers haven't been used for a long
time.
News Corp owns Dow Jones, the publisher of The Wall Street
Journal. Mr. Hinton was the chief executive of Dow Jones from 2007
to 2011.
The saga dates back to the 2006 arrest of News of the World's
royal-family correspondent and a private investigator employed by
the Sunday tabloid. Both men were jailed in 2007 for hacking into
the phone messages of some members of the royal family. But
evidence later surfaced that the practice was more widespread,
triggering years of sweeping probes into alleged wrongdoing by the
paper and other media.
Criminal prosecutions of some reporters, editors and executives
followed, resulting in dozens of convictions, including for phone
hacking and bribing public officials. The alleged practices were
also the subject of a number of civil lawsuits. British prosecutors
last December said they would no longer pursue cases stemming from
the police's long-running investigations.
On Wednesday, Messrs. Myler, Crone and Hinton separately
criticized the panel for overreach, saying the body had reached its
conclusions without properly testing the evidence that the men had
given.
"After more than four years, the Committee of Privileges has
thrown out the charges that I was guilty of contempt of Parliament
and a cover-up of phone hacking," Mr. Hinton said in a statement,
adding that its findings were "too little and too late" after he
had been publicly vilified at the time.
"It is profoundly disappointing that the Privileges Committee
has chosen to act in a manner which serves to discredit
parliamentary procedures rather than enhance the very authority and
respect which they profess to command," Mr. Myler said in a
statement.
Mr. Crone, meanwhile, said in a statement that he stood by his
testimony and rejected the committee's findings, which he said
ignored completely the evidence that he had given to
Parliament.
News Corp's British newspaper unit, News UK, declined to
comment.
Write to Alexis Flynn at alexis.flynn@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 14, 2016 17:35 ET (21:35 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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