Sir Hugh Orde, the president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, has lambasted Rupert Murdoch, saying the chairman of News Corporation had shown a complete denial of responsibility for what had gone on in his company.
He contrasted Murdoch's behaviour with the leadership shown by Sir Paul Stephenson, the Metropolitan police commissioner who quit last week over his indirect links with former News of the World editors.
Orde is tipped as a possible replacement for Stephenson, and it is the second time in a few days that he has attacked the irresponsibility of News Corps.
Speaking on the BBC's Andrew Marr programme, Orde said "You saw the chief officer of the police service of this country, Sir Paul Stephenson, saying, 'Look this happened on my watch. I am responsible. I am therefore … It's on my watch. I am resigning.' Compare that to Rupert Murdoch – complete denial of any responsibility of his organisation."
Writing in Jane's Police Review at the weekend, Orde said: "What we have seen over the last few days is police officers standing up, explaining their actions and decisions and being held to account for them. Across the country, in serving our communities, police officers expect to have to do no less.
"It is a stark contrast to the way in which others have sought to meet their responsibilities."
News Corporation can respond that top executives have now stepped down, notably Les Hinton, chief executive of News International at the time of the phone hacking, and his successor, Rebekah Brooks.
The culture select committee is due to meet on Friday – when it releases a report on football governance – to discuss how to handle the apparent conflict of evidence between James Murdoch, News Corps International chief executive, and other former News International executives, including Colin Myler, the former editor of the now-closed News of the World.
Myler said he did show a crucial email – known as the "For Neville" email – to James Murdoch before News International's decision to pay out around £700,000 to Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Footballers Association in an out-of-court settlement after Taylor threatened to sue the paper.
James Murdoch insisted he did not know about the email, but Myler and Tom Crone, the News Group's former head of legal affairs, have claimed he is mistaken.
Culture select committee members said they hoped to write to Myler and Crone.
They will also be writing to the firm of solicitors Harbottle & Lewis to ask the firm to explain the origins of a carefully crafted letter dated 29 May 2007 claiming that it had not found "reasonable evidence" that senior editors were aware of the actions of Clive Goodman – the royal reporter who went to prison for phone hacking -or that "others were carrying out similar illegal procedures". Harbottle & Lewis reviewed emails from the accounts of Andy Coulson and five other individuals, according to documents published by the culture select committee.
A request for information will also be sent to Lawrence Abramson, a former senior partner at the law firm. The firm of solicitors is not yet clear whether it has legal immunity from News Corps to discuss the exchanges.
Committee members want to ask for evidence from Jon Chapman, News International's former director of legal affairs, about his knowledge of the level of phone hacking. It has been suggested that in 2007 Chapman and Daniel Cloke, then News International's human resources director, reviewed the emails between the six named News of the World members of staff before sending them to Harbottle & Lewis.
It is thought unlikely that the committee will meet in public before September, but this does not prevent compilation of written evidence.
In a separate development, an opinion poll carried out by YouGov for the Sunday Times showed the proportion of people who believed David Cameron was performing "well" had fallen to 39% while his "performing badly" figure at 55% was the worst of his premiership. At the end of May, Cameron was on 48% – 46% showing a net positive of two.
At the same time the proportion who believed Miliband was performing badly had fallen to 50%, down from 60% before the phone-hacking scandal broke. The proportion who believed he was performing well was 35%, up from 25%. So for the first time more people believed Cameron was performing badly than they did Miliband. YouGov surveyed 2749 adults between 21 and 22 July.
News Corp management and standards committee has written to all News International staff ordering them to retain all emails and documents regarded as a relevant to police and parliamentary inquiries into phone hacking.
The email reads: "if you are uncertain whether a document is relevant or falls within the definition of 'document', you should preserve it. Care should be taken to avoid overwriting any electronic file that might be relevant."
