Les Hinton, chief executive of Dow Jones, is being blamed by people close to News Corp for failing to get to grips with the News of the World phone hacking scandal when he was in charge of Rupert Murdoch’s UK newspaper group.

Mr Hinton, a loyal Murdoch employee for 52 years who had been expected to retire next year, could become the most senior casualty of the crisis, deflecting the blame from James Murdoch, who runs News Corp’s European operations, and Rebekah Brooks, chief executive of News International, which publishes Mr Murdoch’s UK papers. “Les [Hinton] will be sacrificed to save James and Rebekah,” one person familiar with the company said. “It happened on Les’s watch,” another added. “James was not even a director of News Corp at the time.”

Rupert Murdoch, who arrived in London on Sunday to take charge of the crisis, is facing growing opposition to his bid to take full control of British Sky Broadcasting. David Cameron, the British prime minister, was scrambling on Sunday to find a way to delay News Corp’s bid after Ed Miliband, the opposition Labour leader, announced Labour would call a parliamentary vote on the matter. The move was greeted by support from the Liberal Democrats, who govern in coalition with Mr Cameron’s Conservatives.