He started off as an office junior getting sandwiches for Mr Murdoch's lunch. Now phone hacking scandal drives New York boss Les Hinton out after 50 years.

Mr. Hinton, pictured with Mr Murdoch,  worked for the Australian-born tycoon for more than 50 years. He was the second of Murdoch's   trusties to leave News Corp. over  the  phone hacking scandal in one day.  The first was News International CEO Rebekah Brooks. 

"It is a deeply, deeply sad day for me," Mr Hinton said in an email to staff.

The problem was not here in the US - where he has been a powerful driving force on the Wall Street Journal - but back in London where Mr. Hinton had been  CEO of News International while the  News of the World was hacking the voicemails of royals, celebrities and citizens including Milly Dowler, a missing teenager later found murdered. 

Mr Hinton  told Parliament in 2006 that the hacking was the work of just one reporter, a statement that no-one now believes is true.

In a resignation letter , Mr Hinton wrote, "The pain caused to innocent people is unimaginable.

"That I was ignorant of what apparently happened is irrelevant and in the circumstances I feel it is proper for me to resign from News Corp., and apologize to those hurt by the actions of the News of the World." 

in 1959, the 15-year-old Hinton  walked into a small evening  paper in Adelaide, Australia, and asked for office work. He got the job - and  his duties included getting sandwiches for Mr. Murdoch's lunch.