Press inquiry is told about ‘killer e-mail’

A “KILLER e-mail” showed that former Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan knew two of his journalists were engaged in stock market manipulation, the Leveson Inquiry heard.

David Seymour, former Mirror Group political editor, claimed the Press Complaints Commission was shown the message but failed to act on it.

However lawyers for Trinity Mirror, which publishes the Daily Mirror, described the e-mail as an “urban myth” and said it was never found.

In 2006 financial journalist James Hipwell was jailed for six months and his colleague Anil Bhoyrul was sentenced to 180 hours community service for using the Mirror’s City Slickers column to ramp shares in a “tip, buy and sell” scam that netted them thousands of pounds.

Mr Morgan, the then-editor, also made money from shares but was cleared of wrongdoing by a Department of Trade and Industry investigation as well as the paper’s own internal inquiry.