He insisted that he had always told the truth to the committee and blamed the tabloid for failing to co-operate with police until earlier this year, prompting Michael Ellis MP to ask if he would normally expect wrongdoers to co-operate with the law.
Mr Yates said: "I can assure you all that I have never lied and all the information that I've provided to this committee has been given in good faith.
"It is a matter of great concern that, for whatever reason, the News of the World appears to have failed to co-operate in the way that we now know they should have with the relevant police inquiries up until January of this year.
"They have only recently supplied information and evidence that would clearly have had a significant impact on the decisions that I took in 2009 had it been provided to us."
After being chastised by Lorraine Fulbrook MP, who told Mr Yates to stop the "smokescreen", he eventually admitted that he had not sought fresh legal advice when he was asked to look at the facts and detail of the case again.
He also admitted that there may have been an "element" of doing the minimum possible to appear as if the matter had been dealt with.
He said that if he had "unwittingly" misled MPs then it was "a matter of deep regret"
There was laughter as he insisted that the public should be reassured that the police were now investigating the matter properly. Mr Yates also said that he would not resign over the crisis, in which he had only played a small part.
Stephen McCabe MP told him: "I think one of the problems for everybody here is that you just don't sound like the dogged, determined sleuth we would expect."
Many observers later concluded that Mr Yates's appearance had been less than successful. A hashtag quickly appeared in Twitter: #YatesoftheKnackersYard.
Paul Waugh, of the PoliticsHome website described it as "the worst Commons kicking of a serving top cop I've ever seen".
Article Source KBG Test Blog (http://rc.kbg.me)
