In a ruling on the Prince Harry phone-hacking case, Mr Justice Fancourt found that “unlawful information gathering was widespread” at the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and the People from 1996 onwards, and that phone hacking started in 1996 and became widespread and habitual from 1998.
Among the former executives and editors named in his judgment on Friday was the former Mirror editor Piers Morgan, now a presenter on the Rupert Murdoch-owned TalkTV, who has always denied knowingly commissioning or publishing stories based on illegally obtained voicemails.
Others included Richard Wallace, the former Mirror editor who is now Morgan’s boss at TalkTV and the head of TV at Murdoch’s News UK; Gary Jones, the former editor of the People, Sunday Mirror and current editor of the Daily Express; former Sunday Mirror editor Tina Weaver; former People editor Mark Thomas; Paul Vickers, the then legal director of Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN); and the former Mirror chief executive Sly Bailey.
Piers Morgan
Former role: Editor of the Daily Mirror 1995-2004
Current role: Presenter TalkTV
In written evidence to the Leveson inquiry into media ethics in 2011-12, Morgan said he was unaware of any private investigators engaging “in any criminal activity”. In evidence given in person, he said he was 100% sure he had not seen phone hacking.
But during the MGN trial, the former Mirror political editor David Seymour said staff at the newspaper heard Morgan openly discussing how phone hacking operated when at a dinner with executives and “knew that his journalists were involved in phone hacking”. In his judgment, the judge accepted Seymour’s evidence “without hesitation”.
The court also heard from the journalist Omid Scobie – now best known as the biographer of Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan – who said that during work experience on the Mirror’s entertainment desk in 2002, he heard Morgan discussing the use of voicemails.
He said Morgan had asked a journalist how confident they were in a story relating to Kylie Minogue and her then boyfriend James Gooding, and was told that the information had come from voicemails.
Fancourt said that recollection was supported by evidence of an invoice from a private investigator related to obtaining Minogue and Gooding’s mobile phone numbers. He said: “I found Mr Scobie to be a straightforward and reliable witness and I accept what he said about Mr Morgan’s involvement in the Minogue/Gooding story. No evidence was called by MGN to contradict it.”
Gary Jones
Former roles: Reporter at the News of the World, investigations editor at the Mirror, editor of the Sunday Mirror and the Sunday People, 2016–18
Current role: Editor of the Daily Express
The judge said he found evidence given by Tony Blair’s former communications chief, Alistair Campbell, and his wife, Fiona Millar, was “wholly credible, and establishes that Southern Investigations were instructed by Gary Jones to obtain confidential information about Mr Campbell’s finances”.
He added: “It is obvious that anyone instructing Southern Investigations to obtain information about various accounts at different banks or building societies would know that the information would not be obtained lawfully, which it was not.”
Richard Wallace
Former role: Editor of the Daily Mirror, 2004-12
Current role: Head of TV at News UK
Wallace told the Leveson inquiry that he was “not aware of any deliberate transgression of the criminal law at the Daily Mirror that has arisen during my time as editor”. While he was aware of the use of private investigators, he said he would not have been “involved in their instructions, have knowledge of what they were doing, or be involved in the nuts and bolts of their payment”.
The court heard Wallace was among the editors and journalists who had commissioned “information providers” who used unlawful tactics. In relation to John Ross, a former Metropolitan police officer who was sacked and became a private investigator, Fancourt said it was “likely” that many or all among those commissioning him or authorising his invoices – including Wallace – would have known “about his particular specialities in providing information”. Work carried out by Paul Hawkes, of Research Associates, during the period 1999-2009 was unlawful and Fancourt considered Wallace to be among those who would have known “what kind of services Mr Hawkes was offering”.
Tina Weaver and Mark Thomas
Weaver, a former Sunday Mirror editor, had previously been implicated in a separate court case over hacking, but no further action was taken against her. Fancourt said she and Mark Thomas, her deputy editor from 2001-03 until he became editor of the People, knew about unlawful activity.
The judge said: “There is a vast quantity of payment records commissioned by journalists at the People. It is inherently likely that Mr Thomas knew what was happening at his newspaper.
“There can be no doubt, therefore, that the editors of the newspapers knew about the VMI [voicemail interception] and UIG [unlawful information gathering] and were in a position to tell Ms Bailey or the board about it, but they obviously did not do so.”
Sly Bailey and Paul Vickers
Bailey, a former Trinity Mirror chief executive, said in a witness statement that the allegation that she knew about unlawful information gathering was “untrue”.
But the judge found that Bailey and Vickers, the group legal director, were the only two directors of Trinity Mirror and Mirror Group who knew about phone hacking at the newspapers before the end of 2011.
Bailey “knew or – what in law amounts to the same thing – turned a blind eye to it from about the end of 2006”, he said. Vickers “certainly knew about phone hacking from about the end of 2003”.
The pair “knew about the illegal activity that was going at their newspapers and could and should have put a stop to it,” Fancourt said. “Instead of doing so, they turned a blind eye to what was going on, and positively concealed it.”
