Murdoch rival says his conscience is clear

10 May 2012, 9:03 pm   -   Source: AAP

The aristocratic owner of rival newspapers has told the Leveson Inquiry his conscience is clear on the phone-hacking scandal that has embroiled News Corp.

Britain's phone-hacking scandal has come knocking on the door of Downing Street, as Prime Minister David Cameron's former communications chief faced a grilling by a media ethics inquiry about his time as editor of a tabloid newspaper that practised large-scale illegal eavesdropping.

Andy Coulson has always insisted he did not know that News of the World employees were hacking the voicemail messages of celebrities, politicians and even crime victims in its quest for scoops and circulation.

He left the paper in 2007 after a reporter and a private investigator were jailed for hacking, and became Cameron's powerful media chief later the same year. He quit that job in January 2011 as the hacking scandal intensified.

Coulson was due to appear at the inquiry after Jonathan Harmsworth, also known as Viscount Rothermere, the aristocratic owner of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.

Those papers and their hugely popular website have flourished on celebrity exposes, but no evidence has emerged of phone hacking, and Harmsworth said his conscience is clear.

"I feel pretty confident that our newspaper has acted ethically and I am willing to stand up for us," he said.

Coulson's appearance at the inquiry - which is examining the often too-cozy relationship between British politicians and the country's press - will be uncomfortable for the Conservative prime minister, whose relationships with senior executives of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp has embroiled him in the hacking furore.

Cameron has close ties to Coulson and to Rebekah Brooks, another ex-news of the World editor, who is due to give evidence to the inquiry on Friday.

Both Coulson and Brooks have been arrested and questioned by police about tabloid wrongdoing, though neither has been charged.

Speculation is rife about what the pair will reveal about their relations with Cameron and his Conservative Party, whose popularity is already at a low amid economic uncertainty and unrest from grassroots activists.

The Murdoch-owned Times of London newspaper reported on Wednesday that Brooks has retained supportive text messages from the prime minister, a personal friend, neighbour and occasional riding companion in the upmarket rural enclave of Chipping Norton.

Brooks and Coulson will be testifying before Lord Justice Brian Leveson, who is leading the inquiry to sift through the fallout of the hacking scandal that has rocked Britain's establishment and rattled Murdoch's News Corp with revelations of widespread journalistic malpractice.

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