Culture, Media and Sport CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by James Murdoch, Deputy Chief Operating Officer and Chairman and CEO, International, News Corporation

I refer to the letter written on behalf of the Management and Standards Committee (“MSC”) of today’s date, and the email chain dated 7 June 2008 that accompanies it. I only became aware of the email on Wednesday, 7 December 2011 when it was passed to me by the MSC. Hence, it was not available to me prior to my testimony before your Committee and I could not have disclosed it earlier.

It now appears that Mr Myler sent an email to me on Saturday afternoon, 7 June 2008, in order to request a short meeting the following Tuesday (10 June 2008) for an “update on the Gordon Taylor (Professional Football Association) case”. Given the timing of my response, just over two minutes after Mr Myler had sent his email to me, and the fact that I typically received emails on my BlackBerry on weekends, I am confident that I did not review the full email chain at the time or afterwards, nor do I recall a conversation with Mr Myler over that weekend. Instead, having agreed to meet the following Tuesday, I would have relied on the oral briefing on 10 June 2008 that I have previously described in my testimony before the Committee.

I would also like to take this opportunity to reaffirm my past testimony that I was not aware of evidence that either pointed to widespread wrongdoing or indicated that further investigation was necessary.

I apologise this has only now come to light and that it is being brought to the Committee at this late stage of your enquiry. Please write to me if the Committee has further questions arising from the disclosure of this email chain and I will endeavour to answer them as quickly as possible.

12 December 2011