Court hears phone hacking ‘rife’ at Mirror Group papers

PHONE HACKING was “rife” at all three of Mirror Group Newspaper’s (MGN) national titles by mid-1999, the High Court has heard.

At a hearing to decide the amount of compensation to be awarded in eight representative cases, counsel David Sherborne said the date when the practice started at the Daily Mirror, the Sunday Mirror and the People was not known.

But the evidence was that it was rife on the showbusiness desk at the Daily Mirror by mid-1999 and continued thereafter.

James Hipwell, a former Daily Mirror journalist who is due to give evidence during the two- week hearing before Mr Justice Mann in London, said it was “endemic” at the newspaper.

Mr Sherborne, who is representing Alan Yentob, S a d ie Fr o s t , Paul Gascoigne, Lucy Taggart, Shane Richie and Shobna Gulati, flight attendant Lauren Alcorn and TV producer Robert Ashworth, said the wrongdoing complained of was carried out intentionally for cynical commercial reasons.

“The fact that MGN continued its phone hacking at such levels and over the course of so many years more than evidences its utility as a valuable source of information, particularly for publishing stories in its three most popular newspaper titles.”

He told the judge: “Your task at the end of the day is to assess the likely extent of the wrongdoing in relation to each of the claimants and then to make an award.”