Former NoW editor ‘to return to Britain voluntarily’

Greg Miskiw, 61, was an editorial executive at the newspaper until 2005, during the time that the interception of voicemails messages is alleged to have been carried out by private investigators on behalf of the title.

Mr Miskiw was approached by reporters in Palm Beach in the southeastern American state and said that he had plans to fly back to London answer any questions police may wish to direct to him.

“I’m returning to the UK voluntarily,” Mr Miskiw said.

“My solicitor has been talking to the police for some time now, so I have in effect been in touch with the police. They know where I am, and they know I’m returning – that’s all I’m saying.”

“My solicitor has been talking to the police for some time now…They know where I am, and they know I’m returning.” Greg Miskiw

Former NoW editor Andy Coulson and assistant editor Ian Edmondson have both been arrested and questioned by detectives with Operation Weeting about alleged phone hacking.

Mr Miskiw declined to answer a question about whether he himself had authorised the interception of voicemail message during his time at the newspaper.

He also refused to answer questions about Mr Coulson and Rebekah Brooks, the former News International chief executive, who resigned from her post last week, days after the NoW was shut down.

Mr Miskiw’s former partner was also arrested in Leeds last month in connection with the Met’s investigations into phone hacking.

Reports are emerging that he has recently been employed by the publisher of the National Enquirer, one of America’s best-selling celebrity gossip magazines.

Murdoch to be recalled

And in another development, the chair of the Commons Culture Select Committee, John Whittingdale, said he planned to recall James Murdoch to give more evidence following the publication of a statement from the former editor of the News of the World, Colin Myler, and News International’s ex-legal chief Tom Crone contradicting part of Mr Murdoch’s testimony on Tuesday to the committee and suggesting he was aware of further details of the hacking allegations.

The statement, referring to the out-of-court settlement agreed with the chief executive of the Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA), Gordon Taylor, said: “James Murdoch’s recollection of what he was told when agreeing to settle the Gordon Taylor litigation was mistaken. In fact we did inform him of the ‘for Neville’ e-mail which had been produced to us by Gordon Taylor’s lawyers.”

The reference to “Neville” in the e-mail is believed to refer to the News of the World’s former chief reporter, Neville Thurlbeck, who was arrested in April on suspicion of illegally accessing e-mails. He was later released on bail.

In 2009, the Culture Committee was given copies of documents referring to an e-mail sent four years earlier to the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire by a junior reporter on the paper. The e-mail referred to a transcript of hacked telephone messages between Gordon Taylor and a colleague at the PFA and the reporter wrote: “Hello, this is the transcript for Neville”.