Murdoch, son deny knowledge of the scale of phone hacking at News of the World

Denying knowledge of phone-hacking and payments to police at his now-shut News of the World tabloid, News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch blamed people he trusted, during three hours of questioning by British lawmakers. The questioning at one stage was interrupted by a protester attacking him with a shaving foam pie.

''They betrayed the company, and me, and they deserve to pay, and I think that frankly I'm the best person to clean this up,'' the 80-year-old media tycoon, flanked by his son James, said at a parliamentary committee hearing in London.

Both father and son denied knowledge about interception of  voice mails by employees or payments to police for stories at the Sunday tabloid, the newspaper they closed on 10 July. The 168-year old newspaper closed following a public outcry and political backlash.

The company also had to drop its £7.8 billion bid for all of British Sky Broadcasting Group Plc over allegations that murder and terror victims had their phones hacked by News of the World tabloid.

Describing it as the most humble day of his life, Murdoch insisted that wrongdoing at the newspaper and efforts to clear it up were far below his level.

According to his son, the scale of the phone-hacking had come to his knowledge as a result of civil litigation in 2010. He said he had been ''surprised'' to learn that New York-based News Corp had been paying the legal fees of one of the men jailed for phone-hacking four years ago.