Labour turns on the Mirror as phone-hacking scandal spreads from News International
By politics.co.uk staff
Labour turned on its most loyal news outlet today, after reports that journalists at the Mirror hacked the phone of Heather Mills.
Sir Paul McCartney's ex-wife told Newsnight a senior journalist for the tabloid admitted to her that he had obtained a recording of a voicemail left by the ex-Beatle in 2001.
The journalist quoted passages of the voicemail back to Ms Mills verbatim, she said, after which she confronted him.
"I said you've obviously hacked my phone and if you do anything with the story, obviously they were very private conversations about issues we were having as a couple, I'll go to the police," she said.
"He said 'OK, OK, we did hear it on your voice messages, we won't run it'."
Deputy Labour leader Harriet Harman commented: "It's not good enough for Piers Morgan just to say he's always stayed within the law.
"There are questions about what happened with Heather Mills' phone messages that he needs to answer.
"The public rightly expects that we will get to the bottom of phone hacking. That's why it is so important that the police investigation looks at all the evidence and leaves no stone unturned."
Media committee chair John Whittingdale told the BBC: "I would like to see Mr Morgan come back to this country and answer what are some very serious questions."
The Mirror's parent company, Trinity Mirror, also publishes the Daily Record and the People red-tops.
The publisher said in a statement: "Our position is clear. All our journalists work within the criminal law and the PCC [Press Complaints Commission] code of conduct."
Former Mirror editor Piers Morgan claimed he had heard a recording of a message Sir Paul had left Ms Mills in a 2006 article for the Mail newspaper.
"At one stage I was played a tape of a message Paul had left for Heather on her mobile phone," he wrote.
"It was heartbreaking. The couple had clearly had a tiff, Heather had fled to India, and Paul was pleading with her to come back. He sounded lonely, miserable and desperate, and even sang 'We Can Work It Out' into the answer phone."
In a later statement, Mr Morgan said Sir Paul had insisted that Ms Mills had hacked his phone.
"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," he said.
"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."
He added: "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."
Ms Mills and Sir Paul had a troubled relationship. They were married from 2002 but divorced in 2008.
Last week Trinity Mirror initiated a review of its editorial controls and procedures.
It has been the subject of fearsome attacks by predominantly right-wing figures over claims it used phone-hacking to reveal the affair between Sven-Goran Eriksson and Ulrika Jonsson in 2003.
This morning, Tory MP Louise Mensch, who recently apologised to Mr Morgan for misquoting his book in parliament, tweeted: "Trinity Mirror cannot refuse to examine this and remain a responsible newspaper group, in my opinion."
