Hacking widespread under Piers Morgan: Journalist

Hipwell said he believed the practice was sanctioned by senior editors,although he had not seen it taking place in the presence of Morgan,who edited the newspaper from 1995 until 2004.

It seemed to me that what they were doing was entirely accepted by the senior editors on the newspaper, he told the Leveson Inquiry into press standards. Morgan,now a CNN talk-show host in the US,edited the Rupert Murdoch tabloid at the heart of the phone-hacking scandal,the News of the World,from 1994 to 1995 before going on to edit the Daily Mirror from 1995 to 2004.

Hipwell told the inquiry he had the impression hacking had been a bog-standard journalistic tool for gathering information at the Mirror when edited by Morgan. It seemed to be a genuinely accepted method to get a story, he said. He described Morgan, as an extremely hands-on editor with a particular interest in the showbusiness desk,which he typically visited every day.