Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Peter Clarke says that News International "deliberately tried to thwart a criminal investigation" 
 
 News International tried to "thwart" the original inquiry into phone hacking at the News of the World, senior Met police officers have told MPs. 
 
 Ex-Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke said there was "prevarication and what we now know to be lies". 
 
 Assistant Commissioner John Yates said the firm "appears to have failed to co-operate" during his review of the case. 
 
 Commons Home Affairs Select Committee chairman Keith Vaz said Mr Yates's evidence was "unconvincing". 
 
 Current Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson, who was seen emerging from 10 Downing Street on Tuesday evening, said Mr Yates had his "full support and confidence". 
 
 A police investigation began in 2005 triggered by stories in the News of the World (NoW) about Prince William's health. 
 
 News International closed the paper last week amid continued outrage over reports of hacking including revelations that the mobile phones of murder victim Milly Dowler and relatives of dead soldiers had been accessed. 
 
 In his evidence to the committee, Mr Clarke said: "We pursued it as far as we could through the correspondence with the News of the World lawyers." 
 
 But he added: "This is a major global organisation with access to the best legal advice, in my view deliberately trying to thwart a police investigation." 
 
 In other developments: 
 
 News International (NI) denied that the Sun accessed the medical records of former prime minister Gordon Brown's son Fraser, explaining a 2006 story about him having cystic fibrosis "originated from a member of the public". Another NI paper, the Sunday Times, denied it broke any laws when investigating the purchase of a flat by Mr Brown 
 
 Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers, who is leading a new investigation into phone hacking, revealed to the committee that only 170 out of more than 4,000 potential victims whose details were stored by private investigator Glenn Mulcaire had been contacted by police 
 
 Labour leader Ed Miliband met David Cameron and Deputy PM Nick Clegg to discuss the fall-out of the scandal 
 
 MPs will vote on Wednesday on a Labour motion urging News Corporation boss Rupert Murdoch to withdraw his bid for BSkyB - and the government said it would back the call 
 
 News Corporation boss Rupert Murdoch, its chairman James Murdoch and News International's chief executive Rebekah Brooks have been invited to appear before the Culture, Media and Sport Committee next Tuesday 
 
 Mr Miliband had a meeting with the family of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler, whose phone was allegedly hacked, and told them his "heart goes out" to them 
 
 The final edition of the News of the World on Sunday sold 3.8 million copies, 1.1 million more than the previous week 
 
 The websites TheSunOnSunday.co.uk and SunOnSunday.co.uk are transferred to News International amid speculation a seven-day edition of the Sun is being planned 
 
 News International said it would offer new positions to the "vast majority" of former News of the World staff 
 
 Mr Clarke told MPs his remit during the initial investigation was strictly to look into who had been hacking into the phones of members of the royal household. 
 
 Analysis This was three hours of theatre that ranged from drama, when John Yates was asked whether he should resign, to pantomime, as Andy Hayman was offered a piece of paper in order to eat his words. But the most telling contribution came from Sir Ian, now Lord, Blair, who said the first phone hacking inquiry, under his watch as commissioner, was a "tiny fragmentary event... not seen as particularly significant". That told you more about why those 11,000 pages of material weren't "exhaustively" examined than any of the other evidence. Tackling phone hacking, intrusion into people's privacy, just wasn't as important to the Met as stopping terrorist attacks. The scale of the investigation now - almost 4,000 names and 9,000 phone numbers to trawl through - illustrates why detectives feared in 2006 they'd become so bogged down that other duties would be neglected. In quotes: Met's evidence 
 
 Only the "most important" victims of phone hacking had been told about it, he said. 
 
 He said he had to weigh up a breach of privacy investigation with counter-terrorism investigations, and an exhaustive analysis of the evidence at hand may or may not have made any difference at all. 
 
 "If at any time News International had offered some meaningful co-operation instead of prevarication and what we now know to be lies, we would not be here today," he said. 
 
 In 2007, a reporter and private investigator working for the paper were jailed for phone hacking. 
 
 It was reported that the pair were considered to have been acting alone and the investigation led by former Met Assistant Commissioner Andy Hayman ended. 
 
 Mr Hayman told the committee: "At the time everything possible that they were able to do, given the resources and the parameters they set, was done and I stand by that... 
 
 "What we look like now, it's very lame. I think what's happened is I think we've had more time to do it, more revelations have come out, the News of the World have given us material that we didn't have at the time." 
 
 Mr Hayman later went on to become a columnist with News International title the Times but rejected suggestions he was in the newspaper group's "back pocket". 
 
 In 2009, Assistant Commissioner Yates oversaw a review of the investigation after allegations appeared in the Guardian that NoW reporters had paid private investigators to hack into thousands of phones, many owned by politicians and celebrities. 
 
 At the hearing, he admitted it was a "poor" decision not to reopen the inquiry and he regretted not doing enough to protect victims. 
 
 But he said: "It is a matter of great concern that, for whatever reason, the News of the World appears to have failed to co-operate in the way that we now know they should have with relevant police inquiries up until January this year. 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Key moments from the Home Affairs Select Committee session 
 
 "They have only recently supplied information and evidence that would have had a significant impact on the decisions that I took in 2009 had it been provided to us then." 
 
 He said he would not resign over criticisms of his actions, and told MPs he had not been under pressure from the NoW over issues in his private life. 
 
 Mr Yates also said he was 99% certain his own mobile was hacked between 2005 and 2006. 
 
 In a statement, the Met Commissioner said Mr Yates should be given "credit for his courage and humility in acknowledging that if he knew then what he knows now, he would have taken different decisions". 
 
 He added he hoped Mr Clarke's evidence "helps to inform the public debate and the reasons that the original inquiry operated as it did". 
 
 One of the members of the committee, Labour's David Winnick, said the hearing confirmed the initial police investigation into phone hacking was "totally inadequate". 
 
 Other MPs not on the committee but who listened to the evidence, were also critical of what they heard. 
 
 Giving evidence Lord Blair: Met Police Commissioner at the time of the original inquiry 
 
 Met assistant commissioner John Yates: In 2009 he oversaw a review of the inquiry but ruled out reopening it 
 
 Former deputy assistant commissioner Peter Clarke: One of the senior officers who first investigated NoW hacking claims 
 
 Former Met assistant commissioner Andy Hayman: Oversaw the 2006 investigation 
 
 Deputy assistant commissioner Sue Akers: The officer in charge of the current investigation 
 
 Labour MP Chris Bryant, who suspects his phone was hacked, said: "Nearly everything that we have heard in the last few weeks was in the papers that the police gathered in 2006 if they had chosen even to read it. All we learned today is, they didn't even bother to read most of it." 
 
 And former shadow home secretary David Davies said: "There was incompetence in the handling, there was complacency over the issue." 
 
 Deputy Assistant Commissioner Akers confirmed to the committee that the material gathered by police contains 3,870 first and second names. There are 5,000 landline phone numbers and 4,000 mobile phone numbers. 
 
 She said senior management at News International were now co-operating with her inquiry. 
 
 "I held a meeting at which for the first time two News International executives attended to debate our very different interpretations of the expression full co-operation and subsequent to that meeting I can say that relationships have been much better," she said. 
 
 The committee hearing opened with questions to former Met Police Commissioner Lord Ian Blair about claims police officers had been paid for information by the News of the World. 
 
 He said he strongly suspected corruption in the force, but knew of no payments made to police officers. 
 
 Lord Blair was also asked about the decision not to reopen the inquiry in 2009. 
 
 He said: "If material was available at the time that showed 'industrial level hacking' it would have been appropriate to have gone further. 
 
 "I didn't know and I wouldn't have expected it to have been known further up the organisation." ||||| News Corp. (NWSA)’s Rupert Murdoch, who’s been asked to testify in front of U.K. lawmakers, is facing at least six investigations stemming from a phone-hacking scandal and his bid to buy all of British Sky Broadcasting Group Plc. (BSY) 
 
 Murdoch may be in the spotlight on July 19 as he’s called to answer questions from the Parliament’s committee on Culture, Media and Sport about prior evidence that News Corp.’s British newspaper unit, News International, had paid police to get stories. The News Corp. Chief Executive Officer’s son, James, and the unit’s CEO Rebekah Brooks were also summoned to testify. News International said they will cooperate. 
 
 John Whittingdale, the committee’s chairman, told Sky News yesterday News International needs to answer questions about who knew of the crimes and when. 
 
 “The police inquiry is the most important thing and will lead to criminal charges against some people,” Whittingdale said. “Part of the problem with this saga is that everyday has brought a new revelation. I’ve given up being surprised.” 
 
 Rupert Murdoch arrived in London on July 10 to deal with a flurry of allegations that reporters at the now-defunct News of the World tabloid hacked into hundreds of mobile-phone voice mails, including those of murder and terror victims, and bribed police for confidential information. The scandal prompted Murdoch to close the 168-year old tabloid. 
 
 “They have misled parliament egregiously over time, they have misled the country, they’ve misled their readers and it’s incumbent,” on parliament to get the facts, Tom Watson, a member of the committee, told BBC Radio 4 yesterday. “We will be sitting next Tuesday and we expect them to be there.” 
 
 Police, Cameron 
 
 London’s Metropolitan Police are investigating, and Prime Minister David Cameron called for two other inquiries into why an initial police phone-hacking probe failed, how widespread the hacking was, and whether it also occurred at other newspapers. 
 
 The current police probe was opened in January after new information surfaced as the result of civil lawsuits filed by celebrities including actress Sienna Miller against the tabloid. Police opened a second investigation last week into police bribes. Meanwhile, communications regulator Ofcom and the U.K. Competition Commission are reviewing the proposed BSkyB deal. 
 
 Two watchdog groups, Media Matters for America and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics have called for U.S. lawmakers to investigate if journalists working for News Corp. hacked the voice mails of Americans. 
 
 Photographer: Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images Rebekah Brooks, chief executive officer of News International Ltd. Close Rebekah Brooks, chief executive officer of News International Ltd. Close Open Photographer: Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images Rebekah Brooks, chief executive officer of News International Ltd. 
 
 9/11 Victims 
 
 Senator Jay Rockefeller, a Democrat from West Virginia, called for U.S. agencies to investigate whether alleged phone hacking at News Corp.’s U.K. newspapers targeted American victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. 
 
 “I am concerned that the admitted phone hacking in London by the News Corp. may have extended to 9/11 victims or other Americans,” Rockefeller, said yesterday in a statement posted on the website of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, which he chairs. “If they did, the consequences will be severe.” 
 
 News International is assisting the Metropolitan Police in their investigation, Brooks said in a July 8 memo to staff. Joel Klein, who heads News Corp.’s education unit, is leading and directing the company’s overall handling of the matter, Brooks said. Klein, the former chancellor of New York City schools, was also the head of the U.S. Justice Department’s antitrust division. 
 
 Brooks said in the memo that News Corp. isn’t conducting its own investigation. 
 
 Damage Limitation 
 
 “One of the real challenges for the company will be dealing with all of these inquiries running in parallel with overlapping goals,” Nick Benwell, the head of the crime, fraud and investigations group at Simmons & Simmons in London, said in an interview yesterday. “They’ll be very keen to limit the damage and keep it to a News of the World issue.” 
 
 Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg News Corp.'s chairman for Europe and Asia James Murdoch arrives at the offices of News International in London. Close News Corp.'s chairman for Europe and Asia James Murdoch arrives at the offices of News... Read More Close Open Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg News Corp.'s chairman for Europe and Asia James Murdoch arrives at the offices of News International in London. 
 
 Miranda Higham, a spokeswoman for New York-based News Corp., declined to comment on the scope and expense of the probes or any distraction they may cause management. Murdoch, his son and Brooks aren’t required to appear at the parliamentary hearing. 
 
 “They are damned if they do and damned if they don’t,” said Niri Shan, the head of media law at Taylor Wessing LLP. “If they don’t appear it looks like they have got something to hide. If they do, whatever they say is going to lead to growing scrutiny of the issue.” 
 
 ‘Lack of Cooperation’ 
 
 Murdoch avoided an in-depth probe into the tactics of reporters at the paper for years after its former royal reporter, Clive Goodman, and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire were jailed in 2007 for tapping phones of members of the royal family. The police closed an investigation in December, citing a lack of evidence. 
 
 News International blocked an earlier police inquiry into phone hacking by its “complete lack of cooperation” and “lies,” Peter Clarke, former deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, told lawmakers on Parliament’s Home Affairs Committee yesterday. 
 
 “This is a global organization with access to the best legal advice in my view deliberately trying to thwart a criminal investigation,” Clarke said as he tried to explain why police between 2006 and 2010 refused to extend their investigation into illegal activities by journalists at the News of the World. “I was certain as could be that they had something to hide.” 
 
 Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown yesterday accused Murdoch’s newspapers of using criminals to get stories about him while he was in office and said he was reduced to tears when the Sun tabloid phoned him to say its reporters obtained his son’s medical records showing he was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis. 
 
 BSkyB Bid 
 
 News Corp. said it didn’t access the medical records of Brown’s son nor did it commission anyone to do so. The story came from a member of the public whose family also experienced cystic fibrosis, the company said in an e-mailed statement. 
 
 The phone hacking revelations have overwhelmed the company’s BSkyB bid. News Corp. on July 11 rescinded its offer to spin off Sky News as part of the BSkyB buyout, pushing U.K. Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt to refer the bid to the Competition Commission for a review. 
 
 BSkyB shares declined 1.8 percent to 679.5 pence in London trading as of 11:37 a.m., less than the 700 pence a share offered by News Corp. for the 61 percent it doesn’t already own. 
 
 Hunt said the latest review, which follows investigations by Ofcom and the Office of Fair Trading, will focus on media plurality, whether the deal would reduce the number of voices. Ofcom, which has the power to revoke BSkyB’s license, can still hold up the deal as it considers whether News Corp. should own BSkyB and said it’s monitoring the police probe. 
 
 BSkyB Vote 
 
 The regulator is likely to wait until the investigation concludes before deciding whether News Corp. is “fit and proper” to own a U.K. broadcaster, said Chris Watson, a telecommunications lawyer at CMS Cameron McKenna in London. 
 
 “In merger control issues, they ought to be quite reluctant for approving the deal,” Watson said. The finality of a decision “requires you to be very hesitant.” 
 
 Cameron joined other politicians pushing for News Corp. to drop the BSkyB bid as the scandal widened and said he would support the opposition Labour Party in a non-binding vote on the issue today. On July 8, he called for a judge-led inquiry and a second review that can begin this summer to “look at how our newspapers are regulated and make recommendations for the future.” 
 
 Chris Goodall, a media analyst at London-based Enders Analysis, said the volume of activity will be difficult for News Corp. to manage. 
 
 “The people who would usually be running the business end up spending a large fraction of their time working on the regulatory and political stuff,” Goodall said. “It’s continuous requests for data.” 
 
 To contact the reporter for this story: Lindsay Fortado in London at lfortado@bloomberg.net; Thomas Penny in London at tpenny@bloomberg.net 
 
 To contact the editor responsible for this story: Anthony Aarons at aaarons@bloomberg.net. ||||| LONDON — Facing the unpleasant prospect of being represented by a pair of empty chairs and a period of silence at a parliamentary committee hearing on phone hacking next week, Rupert Murdoch , the chairman of the News Corporation, and his son James reversed themselves on Thursday and said that yes, they would testify at the hearing after all. 
 
 The select committee on culture, media and sport will now have the chance to interrogate not only the two Murdochs but also Rebekah Brooks, chief executive of News International, the company’s British newspaper subsidiary. Ms. Brooks had agreed from the outset to testify. 
 
 Word that the Murdochs had shifted course came as one of several other moves by the News Corporation on Thursday that signaled the company was adopting a more assertive strategy to deflect the condemnation being hurled its way. It brought on outside public relations help for the crisis, hired a prominent white-collar defense lawyer and was said to be planning to run full-page apology advertisements in newspapers across Britain. 
 
 The elder Mr. Murdoch made his first extended comments on the matter, phoning a reporter at The Wall Street Journal, which he owns, to defend his company’s handling of the crisis. He said the matter had been handled “extremely well in every way possible,” and rejected claims that his son James had moved too slowly to address concerns about the hacking. 
 
 He added that he was eager “to address some of the things that have been said in Parliament, some of which are total lies,” and said reports that the News Corporation was contemplating spinning off its newspapers into a separate entity were “pure rubbish.” 
 
 Meanwhile, the company’s woes increased on Thursday when yet another former senior editor of its tabloid The News of the World, now defunct, Neil Wallis, became the ninth person since January to be arrested in the phone-hacking scandal. Mr. Wallis also appears to have unusually close ties to top officers at the Metropolitan Police Service, and worked for them as a public relations consultant last year. 
 
 Next Tuesday’s meeting will be the first time the Murdochs and Ms. Brooks will have to publicly answer questions about the affair. With evidence mounting by the day of criminality and dubious journalistic practices at The News of the World and other News Corporation newspapers here, the company not only has summarily closed the paper, but also has withdrawn its $12 billion bid for British Sky Broadcasting. 
 
 In response to earlier letters from the culture committee, Rupert Murdoch at first announced he was “not available” to attend the hearing, while James Murdoch said that next week would not work for him, either, but that he would be available sometime in August, if that was convenient for everyone else. 
 
 Not convenient, the angry committee retorted. Using only rarely invoked powers, the committee’s chairman, John Whittingdale, responded by ordering that the Murdochs be presented with formal summonses to appear. 
 
 Mr. Whittingdale, a Conservative member of Parliament, also declared that he was fully prepared to “empty-chair” the Murdochs by holding their portion of the hearing without them, using two chairs as stand-ins. After waiting a while for them to turn up, he said, he then planned to ask that they be declared in contempt of Parliament. 
 
 Rupert Murdoch’s hasty U-turn reflects the company’s confusion in handling the crisis and a sense that its chairman has been unable to properly judge the public mood. By cooperating with the committee, people close to Mr. Murdoch believe, he can demonstrate that he is taking the scandal seriously. 
 
 The public relations firm Edelman confirmed on Thursday that it had been hired here by News International to provide “communications and public affairs support and counsel,” another sign that the company was trying to develop a better strategy to help it navigate the crisis. News International also flew staff members from Rubenstein Associates, the powerful New York public relations firm that already advises Mr. Murdoch, to London to help out. 
 
 The criminal lawyer they hired, Brendan V. Sullivan Jr. of Williams & Connolly in Washington, has defended Richard A. Grasso, the former chief of the New York Stock Exchange, and Oliver North. 
 
 Mr. Wallis’s arrest, while bad news for the company, is also doubly worrying for the Metropolitan Police Service. The police are already under attack for failing to adequately pursue the phone-hacking inquiry in 2006, and again for failing to reopen the investigation in light of new evidence in 2009. While Mr. Wallis is not the most important figure yet to be arrested — that would be Andy Coulson, a former editor of The News of the World who until January was Prime Minister David Cameron’s chief spokesman — he is close to Scotland Yard. 
 
 After leaving The News of the World in 2009, Mr. Wallis became a media consultant, whereupon he was immediately hired to “provide strategic communication advice” to Scotland Yard officials from October 2009 to September 2010, according to a police spokesman. His firm offered the lowest rate, the spokesman said, explaining how he got the job. 
 
 But his ties to the police went back longer. In September 2006, one month after The News of the World’s royal correspondent, Clive Goodman, was arrested on suspicion of phone hacking and the paper Mr. Wallis worked for was supposedly under investigation, Mr. Wallis had dinner with Sir Paul Stephenson, then Scotland Yard’s deputy commissioner, and Dick Fedorcio, its chief spokesman. 
 
 Sir Paul, now the police commissioner, said on Thursday that he was “very satisfied with my own integrity.” 
 
 More recently, Assistant Commissioner John Yates, another top police official, told a parliamentary committee in March that he could not remember exactly when he last had lunch with Mr. Wallis, but that it “may well” have been in February. 
 
 A police spokesman said he did not know the precise date of this engagement. But if it was indeed in February, that meant that it took place after the police had already opened Operation Weeting, the investigation into phone hacking under which Mr. Wallis has now been arrested. 
 
 Late Thursday, London’s mayor, Boris Johnson, summoned Sir Paul to City Hall for a stern lecture about his decision to hire Mr. Wallis in 2009, local news outlets reported, and Mr. Johnson said he would press for a full investigation. 
 
 Meanwhile, the House of Commons’ culture committee is gearing up for its confrontation with the Murdochs and Ms. Brooks at next week’s hearing. Judging from the outraged remarks lawmakers have been making about the News Corporation and its officers in raucous, angry sessions in Parliament the last few days, it is not likely to be a friendly discussion. 
 
 But it is unclear how much the trio will say, in the end. In a letter to Mr. Whittingdale in which she agreed to testify, Ms. Brooks declared that it “might not be appropriate” to answer questions about the police investigation for fear of prejudicing it. 
 
 “As a result this may prevent me from discussing these matters in detail,” she said. 
 
 Mr. Whittingdale said in response: “We’ll see.”
– Rupert Murdoch, son James, and News International CEO Rebekah Brooks have been asked to appear before British Parliament. The trio will answer questions about the News of the World phone hacking scandal should they show up one week from today; the summoning is not binding but does ramp up pressure on News Corp, Politico reports. More: The hacking scandal continues to widen. Five senior police investigators discovered their voicemail had likely been hacked in 2006, soon after Scotland Yard began its initial investigation into the matter, the New York Times reports. And the revelation raises some sticky questions, like: Could this have caused investigators to ease up on the tabloid out of fear their private lives would be exposed? Members of Parliament will question several police officials today to determine whether the hacking impacted the police inquiry, which was initially very limited, and whether those hacked experienced a conflict of interest. Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown today accused Murdoch's media empire, specifically the Sunday Times, of hiring "known criminals" to gather personal details about his bank account, legal files, and taxes, the New York Times reports. Brown also believes the paper somehow got access to his son's medical records and passed it along to the Sun, a source says. Meanwhile, more reports are emerging that police officers were bribed for information on Brown, the royal family, and others, and that money was spent to secure a copy of the Green Book, which details the queen and Prince Charles' activities. In somewhat lighter Murdoch-related news, the Telegraph reports that the Simpsons episode that aired on Sky1 last night spoofed the scandal. In "Fraudcast News," tycoon Montgomery Burns buys up every media outlet in the town, leading Twitter users to note the parallels between the plot and Murdoch's plan to take over BSkyB.