The Sun newspaper has not hacked into phones, the newspaper's associate editor Trevor Kavanagh has said.

Pressed by Sarah Montague on the question of phone hacking, Mr Kavanagh said that he could not "categorically" say no such thing had taken place, but that "I do not know, and I do not believe, that we are guilty of any of the sins that the News of the World clearly have committed."

"What happened at the News of the World was, I hope and like to think, an aberration over several years and several years ago, and has been cleared up ever since."

The portrayal of Rupert Murdoch at the parliamentary committee as a "doddery old man" were "very far from the truth", he said, arguing that Mr Murdoch was in "complete command" of the strategic management of News Corp.

While he accepted that rival media organisations were entitled to attack News International in the "dog eat dog" world of journalism, he questioned why the BBC had "pounced on this with such glee" to the exclusion of "major, major stories".

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