News of the World chief reporter Thurlbeck says he will defend the 'corpse' of the newspaper

In discussing the ‘For Neville’ email that contained phone messages by former Gordon Taylor from the Professional Footballer’s Association, Thurlbeck commented; "The News of the World were provided with evidence by me as to where the culpability lay. Now at that point the News of the World were faced with two choices, either deal with the problem or ignore the problem and on that decision rested, I believe, the future of the News of the World."

However, he also added that the email was not passed onto Rebekah Brooks or Rupert Murdoch.

Thurlbeck launched a defence of the newspaper, saying that despite being sacked by the company, he was on a mission to defend the News of the World as, like a ‘corpse’ it was unable to defend itself from the bricks that other people were throwing at it.

He praised the staff that worked on the newspaper and described editor Andy Coulson as being the best he worked with. However, he appeared to indicate that he did believe that Coulson must have known about phone hacking by stressing that he was the micro-managing type.