IN FAIRNESS to Tom Crone, a gifted lawyer and respected colleague of 20 years, with whom I find myself rarely divided, I would like to make one clarification.

Today Rupert Murdoch made the following statement at the Leveson Inquiry: "The person I am thinking of was a friend of the journalists, drinking pal, and was a clever lawyer and forbade them to go and see the evidence, or there have been statements reporting that this person forbade people to go and report to Mrs Brooks or James (Murdoch)."

For the record, Tom has never forbidden me from speaking to anyone at News International. Nor has he, to my knowledge, forbidden anyone from doing so either.

I think Mr Murdoch has accidentally conflated the events in my statement to the CMS committee and the person who actually prevented access to Rebekah Brooks was not Tom but another individual who I name in the statement.