Piers Morgan to appear before the Leveson Inquiry via videolink from America

PIERS Morgan will appear before the Leveson Inquiry next week via video link from the United States, it was confirmed yesterday.

The former editor of the Daily Mirror and News of the World is expected to be asked about comments he has made about phone hacking, when he gives evidence on Tuesday.

Other witnesses for the final hearings before the inquiry breaks for Christmas include Stuart Hoare, the brother of former News of the World reporter and phone-hacking whistleblower Sean Hoare, who died in July.

Mr Morgan stressed in a statement in August: “I have never hacked a phone, told anyone to hack a phone, nor to my knowledge published any story obtained from the hacking of a phone.”

The inquiry will hear evidence on Monday from Mr Hoare, Independent on Sunday deputy editor James Hanning and former News of the World sports reporter Matt Driscoll, who made a successful employment tribunal claim for disability discrimination after he was sacked by the paper.

The other witnesses on Tuesday include Sharon Marshall, former TV editor of the News of the World and now resident soap expert on ITV1’s This Morning.

Solicitor Julian Pike, of Farrer and Co, has been recalled to provide details of when News International learned that actress Sienna Miller was bringing an action against the company over the hacking of her phone.

On Wednesday, the inquiry will hear from former Daily Mirror financial reporter James Hipwell, who was jailed for six months in February 2006 for pocketing nearly £41,000 by repeatedly purchasing low-priced stocks, recommending them to readers in the paper’s City Slickers column and then quickly selling them as values soared.

Mr Hipwell claimed in July that journalists at the Daily Mirror and other newspapers hacked phones.

Publisher Trinity Mirror insists that its journalists work within the criminal law and the Press Complaints Commission code of conduct.