Piers Morgan ‘must have known about hacking’

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

He also said that Mr Morgan’s phone had been hacked by a colleague.

In his evidence on Tuesday, 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.

However Mr Hipwell, who was jailed for purchasing low-priced stocks and then recommending them to readers, told the inquiry yesterday: “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.”

Hipwell was sent to prison for six months 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 said: “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,” Mr Hipwell told the inquiry.

Mr Hipwell, who worked at the newspaper between 1998 and 2000, 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 that 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. He added: “It became a daily part of their news-gathering operation.”

Mr Morgan was an “extremely hands-on” editor who demanded to know where every story had come from, Mr Hipwell said.

Discussing the City Slickers incident for which he was jailed, he alleged that his editor had been as guilty as he was, but had got away with it.

“I understand why people think I have an axe to grind against him, but it’s my contention that neither Trinity Mirror nor Mr Morgan took their responsibility for what happened.”

Desmond Browne, QC, counsel for Trinity Mirror, rejected Mr Hipwell’s evidence, but said he did not want to hold up the progress of the inquiry by entering into an extensive cross- examination of him.

The inquiry also heard from journalists covering the disappearance of three-year-old Madeleine McCann in Portugal.

Daily Express reporter David Pilditch said journalists covering the investigation were under great pressure to bring in stories, although it was “near impossible” to do so.

lThe first three months of the Leveson Inquiry into press standards cost £855,300, new figures show. A breakdown of the expenses racked up during the start-up period of mid-July to 31 October was posted on the inquiry’s website.