Apologetic Murdoch says NOTW hacking scandal a 'serious blot' on reputation

London, Apr 27 (ANI): Offering his most complete apology for his shortcomings in the News of the World phone-hacking scandal, News Corp boss Rupert Murdoch has admitted before the Leveson Inquiry that the involvement of the tabloid was a 'serious blot' on his reputation.

Murdoch said that he had been "misinformed and shielded" from what was going on at the paper.

The 81-year-old media mogul also said he believed there had been a "cover-up" at the tabloid - and while he panicked amid the furore following the Milly Dowler hacking revelations last summer, he said he wished he had closed the controversial title "years before", The Guardian reports.

Murdoch said: "I also have to say that I failed", but insisted that he personally did not know about the true scale of phone hacking until late 2010.

He further said that subordinates such as Colin Myler, the former News of the World editor, and the title's chief lawyer Tom Crone, kept him in the dark.

Murdoch's three-and-a-half-hour Leveson appearance on Thursday capped a dramatic day of revelations and fallout stemming from three successive days of evidence given to the inquiry into press standards by the owner of the Sun and Times and his son James. (ANI)