LONDON: Rupert Murdoch's media ambitions in Britain are threatened by a storm of public revulsion over revelations that one of his papers hacked the phones of the parents of the murdered 10-year-olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.

The tabloid News of the World had also targeted the phones of bereaved relatives of victims of the London bombings in 2005.

The latest developments further implicate senior News International executives in the five-year scandal and could not have broken at a worse time for Mr Murdoch. He is seeking approval to take over broadcaster BSkyB, which would make him Britain's dominant media proprietor.

The president of the Liberal Democrats, Tim Farron, said News executives had shown they were not ''fit and proper persons'' to take over BSkyB and joined calls for a public inquiry into the hacking scandal.