LONDON - Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown accused mediatycoon Rupert Murdoch on Monday of misleading agovernment-sponsored inquiry into press ethics with incorrecttestimony alleging Brown had threatened war against Murdoch'scompany. "This conversation never took place. I am shocked and surprisedthat it should be suggested," Brown told the Leveson inquiry. "Thiscall did not happen. The threat was not made." "I find it shocking," Brown said. "This did not happen. There is noevidence that it happened other than Mr Murdoch's, but it didn'thappen." Murdoch had told the inquiry under oath that Brown phoned him inSeptember 2009 after the Sun newspaper started supporting theConservative Party. Brown vowed to wage war on Murdoch's company inrevenge, he testified. "We were talking more quietly than you or I are now - he said,'Well, your company has declared war on my government and we haveno alternative but to make war on your company,'" Murdoch told theinquiry in April. When pressed on how a serving prime minister could make such athreat, Murdoch told the inquiry: "I don't think he was in a verybalanced state of mind". Brown, who served as prime minister from 2007 to 2010, said thatMurdoch was wrong about both the date and the contents of the phonecall. A spokeswoman for News Corp declined immediate comment. Statements submitted to a media watchdog by five of Brown'sadvisers, and seen by Reuters, show none of the five heard Brownthreaten Murdoch on the call. Aides to Brown, including his special adviser, director of strategyand deputy chief of staff, said in statements submitted to thePress Complaints Commission last year that Brown made no suchthreat on the call, which took place in November not September asMurdoch had said. "I listened to the phone call between Mr Brown and Mr. Murdoch inNovember 2009," Stewart Wood, special adviser to the PrimeMinister's office, said in a statement dated October 2011 thatReuters has seen. "At no point in the conversation was threatening language of anysort used by either Mr Brown or Mr Murdoch," Wood said. In one of the other corroborating statement, lawmaker MichaelDugher, wrote: "At no time did Mr Brown threaten the position ofNews International. Both Mr. Brown and Mr. Murdoch were entirelycourteous and calm." A former British leader accusing Murdoch of misleading the inquiryunder oath will further tarnish the reputation of the world's mostpowerful media tycoon in a country which is home to some of hisbiggest newspaper and broadcasting interests. A British parliamentary committee which investigated allegations ofillegal phone-hacking by Murdoch publications has already deemedthe Australian-born tycoon unfit to manage a major global company. The cross-party parliamentary committee said in May that Murdochwas ultimately responsible for the illegal phone hacking that hascorroded his global media empire and convulsed Britain's politicalelite. BROWN'S SON Brown also challenged a version of events given by Murdoch'slieutenant, Rebekah Brooks, about a Sun report that Brown'sfour-month-old son Fraser had been diagnosed with cystic fibrosis. Brooks, a close Murdoch confidante who was charged last month withinterfering with a police investigation into the phone hackingscandal, told the inquiry the Browns had given their backing to thestory. "I have never sought to bring my children into the public domain,"Brown said. He denied his consent had been given to publish thestory. "I find it sad that even now in 2012 members of the NewsInternational staff are coming to this inquiry and maintaining thisfiction." The former prime minister has questioned whether the paper hadhacked into his son's medical records to get the story. Brooks hasdenied this and Murdoch has said the story was broken when a fatherof another child tipped off the newspaper. "A father from the hospital in a similar position had called us,told us," Murdoch said in his testimony. But Brown told the inquiry that the National Health Service in Fifehad apologized to his family because information about his son camefrom NHS staff. "There were only a few medical people who knew that our son hadthis condition," Brown said. He said the NHS in Fife "now believe it highly likely that therewas unauthorized information given by a medical or working memberof the NHS staff that allowed the Sun through this middle man topublish this story," Brown said. The Sun ran a story in July 2011 under the headline "Brown Wrong"which said the source of the story was a "shattered dad" who had ason with the genetic disorder and that Brown's wife, Sarah, hadgiven the newspaper consent to run the story. Brooks said on May 11 at the inquiry that a donation was made tothe cystic fibrosis charity at the request of the man. But Reuters has seen a copy of a letter from the chief executive ofthe Cystic Fibrosis Trust, Ed Owen, saying the Trust found norecord of any donation by The Sun or News International at the timeof the story. The Sun newspaper also reported that its readers had helped CysticFibrosis Trust double its donations in the wake of their storyabout Fraser. But the letter from the Cystic Fibrosis Trust showedthey had seen no significant increase in donations. Regardless of who the source was, the subject of a front pagesplash detailing the serious illness of a four-month baby is likelyto prove unedifying and garner sympathy for Brown, who has rarelyappeared in public since he left office in 2010. Murdoch described a relationship with Brown - whose politicalcareer effectively ended when he lost an election to incumbentPrime Minister David Cameron in 2010 - that included meals whichtheir wives attended and conversations on topics ranging fromcharity to the war in Afghanistan. Brooks told the Leveson inquiry she formed a friendship with SarahBrown and that they had had a "pyjama party" at the primeminister's official country residence, Chequers, with Murdoch'sdaughter, Elisabeth, and his wife, Wendi. But Murdoch said their relationship worsened after his mediacompanies opposed Brown ahead of the 2010 election. Brown told parliament in 2011 that News International was part of a"criminal-media-nexus" that had broken the law on an industrialscale. (Agencies). We are high quality suppliers, our products such as Corundum Refractory Manufacturer , China Insulating Brick for oversee buyer. To know more, please visits Insulation Refractory.
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