Ex-british pm brown accuses murdoch of misleading inquiry - Express PCB Components

This call did not happen. The threat was not made. I find it shocking, Mr. Brown said.

This did not happen.There is no evidence that it happened other than Mr Murdoch s, butit didn t happen. Mr. Murdoch had told the inquiry under oath that Mr. Brown phonedhim in September 2009 after the Sun newspaper started supportingthe Conservative Party. Mr.

Brown vowed to wage war on Mr.Murdoch s company in revenge, 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, Mr. Murdochtold the inquiry in April. When pressed on how a serving prime minister could make such athreat, Mr. Murdoch told the inquiry: I don t think he was in avery balanced state of mind.

Mr. Brown, who served as prime minister from 2007 to 2010, saidthat Mr. Murdoch was wrong about both the date and the contents ofthe phone call. A spokeswoman for News Corp declined immediatecomment.

Statements submitted to a media watchdog by five of Mr. Brown sadvisers, and seen by Reuters, show none of the five heard Mr.Brown threaten Mr. Murdoch on the call. Aides to Mr. Brown, including his special adviser, director ofstrategy and deputy chief of staff, said in statements submitted tothe Press Complaints Commission last year that Mr.

Brown made nosuch threat on the call, which took place in November not Septemberas Mr. Murdoch 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, Mr. 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 Mr.

Murdoch of misleading theinquiry under oath will further tarnish the reputation of theworld s most powerful media tycoon in a country which is home tosome of his biggest newspaper and broadcasting interests. A British parliamentary committee which investigated allegations ofillegal phone-hacking by Mr. Murdoch publications has alreadydeemed the Australian-born tycoon unfit to manage a major globalcompany. The cross-party parliamentary committee said in May that Mr.Murdoch was ultimately responsible for the illegal phone hackingthat has corroded his global media empire and convulsed Britain spolitical elite. Mr.

Brown also challenged a version of events given by Mr.Murdoch s lieutenant, Rebekah Brooks, about a Sun report thatBrown s four-month-old son Fraser had been diagnosed with cysticfibrosis. Ms. Brooks, a close Murdoch confidante who was charged last monthwith interfering 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 publicdomain, Mr.

Brown said. He denied his consent had been given topublish the story. 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. Ms.

Brookshas denied this and Murdoch has said the story was broken when afather of another child tipped off the newspaper. A father from the hospital in a similar position had called us,told us, Mr. Murdoch said in his testimony. But Mr.

Brown told the inquiry that the National Health Service inFife had apologised to his family because information about his soncame from NHS staff. There were only a few medical people who knew that our son hadthis condition, Mr. Brown said. He said the NHS in Fife now believe it highly likely that therewas unauthorised information given by a medical or working memberof the NHS staff that allowed the Sun through this middle man topublish this story, Mr.

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 hada son with the genetic disorder and that Mr. Brown s wife, Sarah,had given the newspaper consent to run the story. Ms.

Brooks said on May 11 at the inquiry that a donation was madeto the cystic fibrosis charity at the request of the man. But Reuters has seen a copy of a letter from the chief executive ofthe Cystic Fibro sis 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.

Mr. Murdoch described a relationship with Mr. Brown - whosepolitical career effectively ended when he lost an election toincumbent Prime Minister David Cameron in 2010 - that includedmeals which their wives attended and conversations on topicsranging from charity to the war in Afghanistan. Ms. Brooks told the Leveson inquiry she formed a friendship withSarah Brown and that they had had a pyjama party at the primeminister s official country residence, Chequers, with Mr.Murdoch s daughter, Elisabeth, and his wife, Wendi.

But Mr. Murdoch said their relationship worsened after his mediacompanies opposed Brown ahead of the 2010 election. Mr. Brown told parliament in 2011 that News International was partof a criminal-media-nexus that had broken the law on anindustrial scale.

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