CoE to review investments in News Corps after phone hacking scandal

The Church of England is coming under pressure to withdraw its £3.8 million investment in Rupert Murdoch's News Corp after the News of the World phone-hacking scandal.

Members of the Anglican General Synod, meeting in York this weekend, demanded swift action to extricate the Church from involvement with the company.

Senior Anglicans were said to be "embarrassed" to learn that the Church Commissioners, who manage investments on behalf of the Church of England, own almost 350,000 shares in Murdoch's business.

The Church's ethical investment committee has written to Mr Murdoch calling on him to hold senior executives to account over the "gross failures of management" over phone-hacking at the News of the World.

Rev Canon Jonathan Alderton-Ford, from Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, said: "Senior figures in the Church of England are embarrassed by this ownership... Clergy and lay people that know about it are of a mind that we should divest ourselves of this investment or we should be we pressing through our ownership for change in the leadership at News Corp."

The Church's ethical investment advisory group said it would first seek to persuade Mr Murdoch to discipline senior executives before considering the "nuclear option" of withdrawing its investment in the company.

Professor Richard Burridge, deputy chairman of the ethical investment committee, said: "If we don't get a satisfactory answer then disinvestment comes on to the horizon, but you can't go straight to the nuclear option, you have to engage first."

In the letter to Mr Murdoch, the Church described the behaviour of the News of the World as "utterly reprehensible and unethical".

The Church said in a statement that the closure of the newspaper, while welcome, was not a "sufficient response" to revelations of malpractice.

"We cannot imagine circumstances in which we would be satisfied with any outcome that does not hold senior executives to account at News Corporation for the gross failures of management at the News of the World," it said.