The prospect of being frogmarched through parliament by a Deputy Serjeant at Arms with a ceremonial sword may be the least of Rupert and James Murdoch’s legal worries.
The News Corp executives are facing judicial inquiries, civil cases, police investigations, shareholder lawsuits and regulatory tests and have assembled a small army of lawyers on both sides of the Atlantic to help fight them.
About 30 celebrities and public figures such as actor Jude Law and designer Kelly Hoppen have already sued News Group Newspapers, the UK division which owns the News of the World, through civil courts over allegations of phone hacking by the now shuttered Sunday tabloid.