Thursday 15 December 2011

Piers Morgan to appear before Leveson inquiry next week

Piers Morgan when he was editor of the Daily Mirror. Morgan is to appear before the Leveson inquiry into media practices. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

Piers Morgan, former editor of the Daily Mirror and the News of the World, is to appear before the Leveson inquiry next week.

His appearance was confirmed by a CNN spokeswoman in New York, where he is based for the filming of his TV chatshow Piers Morgan Tonight, who said that he would be giving testimony at some point next week.

"He's appearing next week, but we don't have a confirmed date yet," said Megan McPartland.

He is expected to be questioned about his own public statements about celebrities, phone hacking and his experience at the helm of two of the country's best-selling newspapers.

Morgan is expected to give evidence by video link from New York.

Last summer it emerged that Morgan had been lined up to take over from Larry King when the TV host retired from his nightly interview show on CNN.

At 28 Morgan was appointed editor of the News of the World, making him the youngest tabloid newspaper editor in history.

He was editor of the Daily Mirror for more than 10 years but was sacked in 2004 after the newspaper conceded that photos it published apparently showing British soldiers abusing an Iraqi were fake.

In a statement the Mirror said it had fallen victim to a "calculated and malicious hoax" and that it would be "inappropriate" for Morgan to continue.

Morgan famously claimed in a GQ magazine interview in 2007 that phone hacking was "widespread" and that "loads of newspaper journalists were doing it" when Clive Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire were jailed in January of that year.

Asked by the model Naomi Campbell in the interview whether he knew about voicemail interception while he was editor of News of the World, Morgan said: "Well, I was there in 1994-95, before mobiles were used very much, and that particular trick wasn't known about. I can't get too excited about it, I must say.

"It was pretty well known that if you didn't change your pin code when you were a celebrity who bought a new phone, then reporters could ring your mobile, tap in a standard factory setting number and hear your messages. That is not, to me, as serious as planting a bug in someone's house, which is what some people seem to think was going on."

Morgan agreed that voicemail interception was an invasion of privacy, adding: "But loads of newspaper journalists were doing it. Clive Goodman, the News of the World reporter, has been made the scapegoat for a very widespread practice."

A year earlier, in 2006, Morgan wrote an article for the Daily Mail claiming that he was played a tape of a message Paul McCartney left on the mobile phone of Heather Mills. "The couple had clearly had a tiff, Heather had fled to India, and Paul was pleading with her to come back," he said in the article. "He sounded lonely, miserable and desperate, and even sang 'We Can Work It Out' into the answerphone."

Morgan described Mills' allegation that he had listened to her voicemail messages as "unsubstantiated".

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