James Murdoch's NOTW phone hacking testimony 'very misleading'

London, Aug 17 (ANI): James Murdoch, the son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch,

slead the UK Parliament over what all knew about now-defunct tabloid News of the World's phone-hacking scandal.

In evidence to a powerful Commons committee, James Murdoch said the highly-respected legal firm Harbottle and Lewis had given News International 'a clean bill of health' following a review of emails relating to the phone-hacking scandal.

In a direct blow to the Murdoch version of events, the lawyers said that there were no chances of the firm being asked to provide News International with a clean bill of health, the Daily Mail reports.

"There was absolutely no question of the firm being asked to provide News International with a clean bill of health which it could deploy years later in wholly different contexts for wholly different purposes," the lawyers said.

It claimed some of the Murdoch evidence to the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee was 'hard to credit,' 'self-serving' and 'inaccurate and misleading'.

In a detailed, 24-page letter to the Parliamentary committee, Harbottle and Lewis gave a complete account all its dealings with News International after News of the World royal reporter Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire were sent to prison in January 2007.

In their evidence to the select committee the Murdochs presented this document as evidence that the company had been given a clean bill of health.

But Harbottle and Lewis's letter stated in the end "it is noteworthy that it has taken until 2011 for News International to make this assertion."

Harbottle and Lewis's letters have raised serious questions about who knew what and when in the phone-hacking scandal that led to the closure of the UK's most popular tabloid. (ANI)