Leveson Inquiry: Phone hacking ‘bog-standard’ at Mirror

It was “very unlikely” that former editor Piers Morgan did not know about alleged phone hacking at the Daily Mirror, the Leveson Inquiry heard today.

James Hipwell, a former financial reporter for the newspaper, told the investigation into press standards that “there wasn’t very much he didn’t know about”.

In his evidence yesterday, Mr Morgan said he was unaware of any phone hacking at the Daily Mirror under his leadership and had “no reason” to believe that hacking was going on.

But Mr Hipwell, who was jailed for purchasing low-priced stocks and then recommending them to readers, told the inquiry today: “Looking at his style of editorship, I would say it was very unlikely that he didn’t know what was going on because, as I have said, there wasn’t very much he didn’t know about.

“As I think he said in his testimony, he took a very keen interest in the work of his journalists. Showbusiness is very close to his heart.”

Mr Hipwell was given a six-month prison sentence in February 2006 for pocketing nearly £41,000. He mentioned the stocks in the Daily Mirror’s City Slickers column and then quickly sold them as values soared.

On the subject of phone hacking, Mr Hipwell went on: “I would go as far as to say that it happened every day and that it became apparent that a great number of the Mirror’s showbusiness stories would come from that source. That is my clear memory.”

The witness said he heard one reporter claim they had deleted someone else’s voicemail message so that a Sun journalist could not listen to it as well.

“One of the reporters showed me the technique, giving me a demonstration of how to hack into voicemails,” he told the inquiry.

Mr Hipwell said: “The openness and frequency of their hacking activities gave me the impression that hacking was considered a bog-standard journalistic tool for getting information.”

He said hacking seemed to be “perfectly acceptable” to some of the Mirror’s senior editors, and added: “The practice seemed to be common on other newspapers as well.”

Mr Hipwell told the inquiry the reporters believed hacking was acceptable as celebrities were “fair game”.

“I think it was seen as a slightly underhand thing to do but not illegal,” he said.

“I don’t think the illegality of it was ever even considered.

“It just seemed to be fair game, fair play, any means to get a story.”

He added: “It became a daily part of their news-gathering operation.”