The head of Sky News has admitted to the Leveson Inquiry he authorised one of his reporters to break the law and hack into the email account of "canoe man".John Ryley, head of news, said journalist Gerard Tubb had accessed an alias account owned by John Darwin - who reappeared five years after faking his own death in a canoe accident - after sources close to the prosecution said email contact between Darwin and his wife would not be examined in the court case against them. He was briefed weeks after Tubb was given confirmation from then managing editor Simon Cole.Ryley apologised to the inquiry after David Barr, junior inquiry counsel, said a statement sent from Sky News to the inquiry last year failed to mention the hacking incidents. He said the letter had been drafted with phone hacking in mind and had mistakenly not included email hacking, which was known to senior management at the time of writing.Darwin and his wife Anne were convicted of fraud in 2008, after Mr Darwin faked his own death and lived secretly in Panama for five years before reappearing in 2007, faking amnesia. His wife had used his life insurance money to cover debts.Emails between the pair, later passed from Sky News to the police, showed Anne Darwin had been aware of her husband’s activities, resulting in her changing her defence in court. Police statements following the conviction referred to the evidence as “pivotal” in the case.Tubb accessed the emails on June 13 2008 after gaining authorisation from Cole and accessed further emails on June 18 and 19.Ryley said: “Sources close to the prosecution were clearly suggesting it might be worth looking at the emails... sources close to the prosecution made clear that they weren't going to be following up on the emails.”He denied Tubb received encouragement from the police to access the account or had started investigating the case rather than reporting it. Ryley was first briefed on the case a month after the hacking took place, in July 2008. The email account was accessed for a second time in an unsuccessful attempt to track the money received by the Darwins.Lord Justice Leveson said: “What you were doing wasn’t merely invading somebody’s privacy, it was breach the criminal law... where does the Ofcom broadcasting code give any authority to a break of the criminal law?”Ryley later told the judge: “I think it’s highly unlikely in the future that Sky will consider breaking the law... I am pretty much ruling it out. Journalism is at times a tough business and we need to at times shed light into wrongdoing, so there might be an occasion but I think it would be very, very rare”.He was also asked about the hacking of an account owned by Lianne Smith, the wife of convicted pedophile Martin Smith, in 2010. The couple and their young daughter fled to Spain in 2007. After Martin Smith was extradited back to the UK in 2010, Lianne Smith killed her daughter and infant son, fearing they would be taken by social services.Ryley said the email account had been accessed after Tubb, working on the case, suspected Lianne Smith may have had contact with local authority employees while living in Spain, believing the children could have been saved if the police were informed of their whereabouts.He added: “The local authority, we believed, could have done more to find out the whereabouts of where the Smith family had run off to.”He admitted the search had instead shown correspondence between Lianne Smith and several media outlets following her partner’s arrest, and said according to Tubb, the local authority had stonewalled several requests from Sky News journalists.Sky News released a statement earlier this month admitting to email hacking but standing by the actions as "editorially justified and in the public interest". Broadcasting regulator Ofcom has announced an investigation into the incidents earlier today.