Rupert Murdoch's British newspaper group has spent more than £53 million on its own investigation of the phone hacking and illegal payments scandal, figures reveal.
Accounts for NI Group Limited - which incorporates The Sun, The Times and the Sunday Times - show that the internal management and standards committee (MSC) has racked up the cost since last July, when it was launched.
Most of the £53.2m figure, disclosed to Companies House, has been accrued through legal and professional fees.
The MSC was set up after the eruption of the hacking affair, which led to the closure of the group's Sunday tabloid, the News of the World.
Its stated aim was to take responsibility for all matters relating to phone hacking at the News of the World, payments to the police and all other related issues at News International.
But it has provoked anger among some staff concerned at the way evidence passed to the police by the committee was being used.
In a strongly worded broadside printed in The Sun in February, the newspaper's associate editor Trevor Kavanagh said there was "unease about the way some of the best journalists in Fleet Street have ended up being arrested on evidence which the MSC has handed to the police".
Earlier this month Mr Murdoch said the MSC had completed its review of The Times, Sunday Times and The Sun and found no evidence of illegal conduct "other than a single incident reported months ago, which led to the discipline of the relevant employee".
Figures released last month showed that the closure of the News of the World and payouts to phone-hacking victims had already cost Mr Murdoch more than £79m.
The subsidiary News Group Newspapers had also taken a £160m accounting write-off to cover the loss of publishing rights for the defunct Sunday tabloid.
The company has set aside £23.7m for phone-hacking claimants' damages and legal fees, and £55.5m for costs relating to the News of the World's closure including redundancy payments and legal fees, the accounts showed.