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Rupert Murdoch told British lawmakers Tuesday that he has not considered resigning his job as the head of News Corp., and he believes he is the most qualified person to resolve the company's current problems.

"I think that frankly, I'm the best person to clean this up," Murdoch said when appearing before a House of Commons committee on Tuesday.

Murdoch's remarks about his leadership of the company embroiled in a phone-hacking scandal came only a few minutes after a brief interruption to Tuesday's proceedings. A protester rushed up behind the 80-year-old media mogul with what appeared to be white foam in a pie dish.

But the protester was struck by Murdoch's wife, Wendi Deng, who was sitting behind him while he was at the hearing. The protester was soon in police custody.

Media reports identified the suspect as Jonnie Marbles, a British comedian.

Lawmakers apologized to Murdoch for the interruption, before adjourning the hearing for an afternoon break.

During what amounted to a three-hour grilling by British lawmakers, Murdoch said he appoints trusted lieutenants to run the divisions of his sprawling news empire, and he believes them to be largely "proud and great and ethical and distinguished professionals."

Calling his appearance before the committee, which is probing a phone-hacking scandal that has embroiled many top politicians, police officers and journalists in Britain, "the most humble day of my career," Murdoch refused to take personal responsibility for the scandal.

He blamed "the people I trusted but they blame maybe the people that they trusted."

The News Corp. chairman recently shut down his popular News of the World tabloid after it was revealed staff members had allegedly hacked into the phone of a murdered British teenager in 2002.

News of the World staff are accused of accessing Milly Dowler's phone and deleting messages, which then gave her family false hopes that the slain 13-year-old schoolgirl might still be alive.

Murdoch told the committee Tuesday that he was "shocked, appalled and ashamed" at the reported actions of News of the World staff who were involved in the alleged Dowler debacle.

Despite speculation that Murdoch had closed the News of the World down for financial reasons, he told lawmakers that he had done so because of the criminal allegations about the paper.

Murdoch bristled when asked if dubious journalistic practices were endemic at the shuttered paper.

"Endemic is a very hard, a very wide ranging word," Murdoch said. "I also have to be very careful not to prejudice the course of justice that is taking place now."

But when questioned in detail about the extent of his knowledge of the News of the World operations, Murdoch said he had never heard the allegations that for years, the tabloid's journalists are alleged to have hacked into the phone accounts of celebrities, politicians and others to gain information, despite the fact that they were reported in the British media. Murdoch said he would never have given the okay to "horrible invasions" of privacy.

He also denied knowledge that his company had paid out more than $1 million to settle lawsuits filed over allegations of phone hacking.

Murdoch suggested that the shuttered tabloid had been only a small fraction of his worldwide business.

"The News of the World is less than one per cent of our company," Murdoch told lawmakers in London.

"I employ 53,000 people around the world who are proud and great and ethical and distinguished professionals in their own right," he added, trying to convey a sense of the former tabloid's importance in News Corp.

He also told the committee that he did not believe the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation had uncovered evidence that staff members from any of his papers had hacked the phones of Sept. 11 victims and their families.

James Murdoch, the elder man's son and the head of News Corp.'s European and Asian operations sat beside his father and also answered questions from lawmakers on Tuesday.

The 38-year-old also offered an apology Tuesday, telling the committee that "these actions do not live up to the standards our company aspires to."

After the day's testimony, the elder Murdoch sent an email to News International staff, saying the company is taking responsibility for the allegations it faces, which "directly contravene our codes of conduct and do not reflect the actions and beliefs of our many employees."

Murdoch also pledged to co-operate with authorities as the phone-hacking probe carries on, saying "Those who have betrayed our trust must be held accountable under the law."

Brooks calls hacking allegations ‘abhorrent'

After a break in Tuesday's proceedings, Rebekah Brooks, former News of the World editor and News International executive, opened her remarks to the committee with an apology for the hacking scandal, calling the allegations "pretty horrific and abhorrent."

Brooks, who resigned amid calls she step down as the scandal grew, told the committee she had been informed that phone-hacking allegations against the paper's reporters were untrue.

"We had been told by people at News of the World at the time, they consistently denied any of these allegations in various internal investigations," Brooks said.

Brooks said she only realized there may be some truth behind the allegations when she read documents contained in a legal action taken by actress Sienna Miller last year.

However, Brooks would not answer when asked if she had been directly lied to by the tabloid's senior staff.

"Unfortunately, because of the criminal procedure, I'm not sure that it's possible to infer guilt until those criminal procedures have taken place," she said.

Brooks also denied knowingly sanctioning a payoff to a police officer.

Meanwhile, David Wilson, a spokesperson for Brooks, said he expects police to return a bag belonging to Brooks' husband, Charlie, which was found Monday dumped in a parking lot near the couple's home.

According to Wilson, the bag contained a laptop and papers belonging to Charlie Brooks, but that police did not find that any of the items were connected to the scandal. On Tuesday, Wilson said a friend of the couple had meant to drop off the bag but had left it in the "wrong place."

In other developments Tuesday:

• London police said the Independent Police Complaints Commission will investigate how and why the force's head of public affairs hired a former News of the World executive as an adviser. Outgoing London police commissioner Paul Stephenson, who resigned over the hacking scandal, also revealed that 10 of 45 of the force's press officers are former News International employees.
• Prime Minister David Cameron cut short a visit to Africa to return to the U.K. to address lawmakers about the scandal on Wednesday. On Tuesday, lawmakers quizzed the Murdochs and Brooks about Cameron's relationship to News International executives and what he may have known about the phone-hacking allegations. Cameron's former communications director, Andy Coulson, was also a former News of the World editor.
• A post-mortem found no evidence of outside involvement in the death of Sean Hoare, calling it "non-suspicious." Hoare, a former News of the World reporter, is credited with being one of the first whistle-blowers on the scandal. He was found dead in his home on Monday.

With files from The Associated Press