Rupert Murdoch apologises, and says there was a 'cover-up' at the NoW Rupert Murdoch is driven from the Leveson inquiry after giving evidence. Rupert Murdoch offered his most complete apology yet for his shortcomings in the News of the World phone-hacking scandal, admitting the affair was a "serious blot on my reputation" and that he had been "misinformed and shielded" from what was going on at the paper. In moments of contrition before the Leveson inquiry, the 81-year-old media mogul also said he believed there had been a "cover-up" at the tabloid - and while he panicked amid the furore following the Milly Dowler hacking revelations last summer, he said he wished he had closed the controversial title "years before." News Corporation's chief executive told a packed courtroom that "I also have to say that I failed" - but insisted that he personally did not know about the true scale of phone hacking until late 2010 and indicated he believed that subordinates such as Colin Myler, the former News of the World editor, and the title's chief lawyer Tom Crone, kept him in the dark. Murdoch's three-and-a-half-hour Leveson appearance on Thursday capped a dramatic day of revelations and fallout stemming from three successive days of evidence given to the inquiry into press standards by the owner of the Sun and Times and his son James. The culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, remained under intense pressure, after his permanent secretary, Jonathan Stephens, declined on 10 occasions to confirm the minister's version of his role in the BSkyB affair in front of a select committee. Stephens, Hunt's most senior civil servant, told the public accounts committee that he would neither confirm nor deny his alleged role in allowing Adam Smith, Hunt's special adviser, to speak to James Murdoch's chief lobbyist, Frédéric Michel. Eventually, the DCMS issued a statement saying Stephens was "content" with the role of the special adviser, who resigned on Wednesday after a slew of emails and text messages showed he had been in close contact with News Corp as the Murdoch company sought Hunt's approval for the purchase of BSkyB. It emerged that Ofcom, the communications regulator, had stepped up its investigation into whether News Corp's 39.1% stake in BSkyB made the satellite broadcaster a "fit and proper" owner of a broadcasting licence. The regulator asked News Corp to provide it with private documents relating to the phone-hacking litigation in which the media company is embroiled, in an investigation that could end with Sky losing the right to air programmes. Murdoch said that he blamed "one or two" people at the News of the World, adding "there's no question in my mind that maybe even the editor [Colin Myler], but certainly beyond that someone took charge of a cover-up." Later he said that the cover-up came from "a friend of the journalists, drinking pal ... a clever lawyer." Former News of the World lawyer, Tom Crone, later issued a statement saying that Murdoch's statement was a "shameful lie." tempering the attacks on former colleagues was the admission that hacking was "against the law, quite apart from the ethical side. It was totally wrong, and I regret it and I've said it's going to be a blot on my reputation for the rest of my life. He insisted that he had played personally no part in any cover-up. He had paid insufficient attention to the News of the World down the years, preferring the Sun, and said he had wished he closed the Sunday title before last July: "I'll say it succinctly: I panicked, but I'm glad I did. Tom Watson, the Labour MP who helped uncover the hacking scandal, said Murdoch's apologies represented a development. He was an unreliable witness and showed little contrition by pointing the finger at many of his former executives. But at least he admitted for the first time that there had been a cover-up. Murdoch's periodic expressions of regret represented the most significant exchanges on the second day of his testimony, but the contrition was also coloured with sideswipes against rivals, former colleagues, and politicians, including Gordon Brown who he insisted had tried to threaten him in a 2009 phone call, even though the former PM insists the conversation never took place. Rupert Murdoch said that he stood by "every word" of his account of the phone call, in which he said that Brown and pledged to "declare war" on News Corp. The inquiry also released an exchange of letters between Murdoch and Brown, written just a month before the 2010 general election, which show Brown complaining about the Sun's coverage of the Afghan war, and the newspaper proprietor defending the title's stance at a time when the tabloid was in full throated support of the Conservatives. Gordon Brown's first letter, dated 5 April, said the two had "spoken ... some time ago" and that he thought the two had "agreed on the importance of the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan and just as we agreed on the importance of supporting our forces in the war in Iraq, we were at one over the imperative of supporting our military forces in Afghanistan." Murdoch's reply, dated four days later, said that while the Sun continued to support the war itself, "our criticism has been on the mission's management." Murdoch's company also rewrote a document submitted to Leveson that had suggested that David Cameron had met the News Corp boss on at least three occasions that had not been listed by No 10. News Corp resubmitted the list after the prime minister's office said it could find no evidence of any of meetings on 25 March 2010, 22 July 2010 and 16 March 2011, which Murdoch had originally declared.