Phone hacking: Piers Morgan has questions to answer, says Harman

Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman says former Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan needs to answer the phone-hacking allegations by Heather Mills Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman said on Thursday that former Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan “has got to answer” questions about phone hacking at the paper during the period he was editor. Harman told Sky News: “Morgan … said he heard a ‘heart-breaking’ phone message, which clearly gives rise to the assumption that he’d heard a tape-recorded message.” Morgan wrote in the Mail on Sunday five years ago that he had once been played a message left by Sir Paul McCartney on the mobile phone of his then-girlfriend Heather Mills, in which the former Beatle sounded “lonely, miserable and desperate”. Harman said: “It is not good enough for him to say – or for someone to say on his behalf – ‘I always complied with the law and the Press Complaints Commission code of conduct’. He’s got to answer now we’ve got these allegations from Heather Mills.” Mills claimed on Wednesday that a senior journalist at one of the Mirror Group titles told her in 2001 they had hacked into her mobile phone messages. She told the BBC the unidentified journalist read out parts of a message left by her then-boyfriend Sir Paul McCartney to her and, when challenged, admitted it had been obtained by listening to her phone messages. The reporter in question is not thought to have worked for the Daily Mirror, which was edited by Morgan from 1995 to 2004. Its parent company, Trinity Mirror, also owns two other national titles, the Sunday Mirror and the People. In a 2006 Mail on Sunday article, Morgan seems to be referring to a similar phone message to the one Mills claimed had been hacked by the senior Mirror Group journalist. Mills said the message read out to her had been left by McCartney while she was in India, following a row the couple had back in London. According to Mills, the journalist rang her and “started quoting verbatim the messages from my machine”. She said she challenged the journalist, saying: “You’ve obviously hacked my phone and if you do anything with this story … I’ll go to the police.” Mills said he responded: “OK, OK, yeah, we did hear it on your voice messages, I won’t run it.” Trinity Mirror said: “Trinity Mirror’s position is clear: all our journalists work within the criminal law and the PCC code of conduct.” Morgan issued a statement through CNN, for whom he records a chat show, Tonight with Piers Morgan, late on Wednesday reiterating he had no knowledge of phone hacking at the Mirror. He added: “Heather Mills has made unsubstantiated claims about a conversation she may or may not have had with a senior executive from a Trinity Mirror newspaper in 2001. The BBC has confirmed to me that this executive was not employed by the Daily Mirror. “I have no knowledge of any conversation any executive from other newspapers at Trinity Mirror may or may not have had with Heather Mills. “What I can say and have knowledge of is that Sir Paul McCartney asserted that Heather Mills illegally intercepted his telephones, and leaked confidential material to the media. This is well documented, and was stated in their divorce case.” Phone hacking Newspapers & magazines National newspapers Newspapers Piers Morgan Harriet Harman Paul McCartney Trinity Mirror James Robinson guardian.co.uk

Posted by on August 4, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.