News International has stated it cannot guarantee the paper stopped phone hacking after the arrest of one of its reporters, the Leveson Inquiry has heard.

Rhodri Davies QC, representing NI, told Lord Justice Leveson he was “not going to give any guarantees that there was no phone hacking by or for the News of the World after 2007.”

He said: "No doubt that will be explored during the evidence, and we note that Mr Jay said the police thought the last instance was in 2009.”"Nonetheless it does look as if lessons were learned when Mr Goodman and Mr Mulcaire went to jail.”"If phone hacking continued after that it was not, as it appears, what Mr Jay described as the 'thriving cottage industry' which existed beforehand."

Davies also apologised to the victims of phone hacking by the NoW and their families.

He said phone hacking was "wrong, shameful and should never have happened."

Associated Newspapers’ counsel Jonathan Caplan QC was next to make an opening statement to the judge at this morning's session.

He accused politicians of having an agenda for setting up the Inquiry and extending its scope to other publishers, and cultures and practices of the press as a whole.

He said: "The rumour mill is that other journalists, working for other proprietors, may also have acted unethically or illegally, and the flames have been fanned to some extent by politicians, perhaps because of their own agenda of holding the press to account for so comprehensively exposing the scandal of parliamentary expenses."

Caplan told the Inquiry that, in relation to Operation Motorman, which investigated the files of private investigator Steve Whittamore; there was no evidence Associated Newspapers asked Whittamore to do anything illegal.

He said: "The activity which Stephen Whittamore was hired to undertake almost a decade ago was primarily to obtain addresses and telephone numbers, most of which - not all of which, but most of which - could legally have been obtained if the individual had had the time to research it."

He added: "His assistance was required, as far as Associated journalists were concerned, to help trace people quickly, usually to verify facts or to comment on stories that were written or were in progress prior to publication."

He said no journalist had ever been charged for obtaining information through Whittamore.

Caplan said: "There simply is no evidence that they ever asked Mr Whittamore to do anything illegal or that they knew he was or might be illegally accessing databases."