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Piers Morgan questioned by police in connection with phone hacking allegations Piers Morgan interviewed by Met detectives about phone hacking at the Daily Mirror
(about 5 hours later)
Former Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan was interviewed under police caution in connection with phone hacking allegations, it has emerged. Piers Morgan, the former editor of the Daily Mirror, has been interviewed under caution by specialist detectives from Scotland Yard investigating phone hacking.
London’s Metropolitan Police force confirmed that a 48-year-old man voluntarily agreed to be interviewed at a police station in South London in December. The Metropolitan Police confirmed it had spoken to a 48-year-old journalist as part of Operation Golding, an off-shoot of Operation Weeting, which probed illegal phone interception at the News of the World and was later widened to include Trinity Mirror newspapers.
Officers from Operation Golding, which is tasked with investigating phone hacking allegations, spoke to Mr Morgan about claims the technique was used at Mirror Group Newspapers during his tenure. Mr Morgan confirmed that following a voluntary statement which he had supplied to police last year, Scotland Yard subsequently interviewed him under caution at a south London police station on 6 December. The interview followed a formal request that he attend. The Met confirmed that Mr Morgan had not been arrested.
He held the position for almost a decade from 1995 to 2004. In a statement, Mr Morgan, who is now based in the United States as an interviewer on the CNN news channel, said he was asked by Operation Weeting to attend the interview “when I was next in the UK”.
The Mirror Group was brought into the phone-hacking investigation for the first time in March last year when detectives from Operation Weeting arrested four journalists in dawn raids. His Atlanta-based employer said it had been informed immediately after Mr Morgan had been called by Scotland Yard. Trinity Mirror declined to comment. Mr Morgan edited the Daily Mirror from 1995 until 2004, when he was dismissed after the newspaper published staged pictures of Iraqi prisoners being abused by British soldiers.
People editor James Scott and deputy editor Nick Buckley were held, along with former editor of the Sunday Mirror Tina Weaver and former deputy editor of the newspaper Mark Thomas. Some of Mr Morgan’s former colleagues at Trinity Mirror were arrested in dawn raids last year as part of the phone hacking investigation at the Met. He has always denied any involvement in the illegal practice.
Allegations against them focused on the Sunday Mirror in 2003 and 2004. The interview under caution of the television star means that, including Mr Morgan, six senior journalists from Mirror titles have now been arrested or formally interviewed in connection with the police’s phone hacking investigation.
Former editor of the Daily Mirror Richard Wallace was also interviewed by police the day after the other four journalists were questioned. Tina Weaver, the former Sunday Mirror editor, the paper’s former deputy editor Mark Thomas, the People editor James Scott and his deputy, Nick Buckley, were arrested in March last year. The day after the arrests, the former Daily Mirror editor Richard Wallace was also questioned under caution.
Scotland Yard did not name Mr Morgan, but said: "A 48-year-old man who is a journalist was interviewed under caution on December 6 2013 in connection with suspected conspiracy to intercept telephone voicemails. He was interviewed by appointment at a south London police station. At the end of 2011 Mr Morgan told the Leveson Inquiry into press ethics that he had not been aware of any phone hacking taking place at the Mirror while he was in charge.
"He was not arrested. Saying he had “no reason” to believe it was going on during his editorship, he told the inquiry that “not a single person” had made a formal or legal complaint against the Mirror in connection with the illegal practice.
"Operation Golding is a strand of Operation Weeting and is specifically investigating allegations of phone interception at Mirror Group Newspapers," they added. Although he told the inquiry he had been played a recording of a voicemail left on the phone of Sir Paul McCartney by his former wife, Heather Mills, he refused to discuss the details, claiming it would “compromise” the source of the information.
In a statement released through his spokeswoman, Mr Morgan said: "In early November I was asked to attend an interview by officers from Operation Weeting when I was next in the UK. In a 2007 interview given to the Press Gazette, Mr Morgan described hacking as “an investigative practice that everyone knows was going on at almost every paper in Fleet Street for years.”
"This was further to a full witness statement I had already freely provided. I attended that interview as requested on 6 December 2013." In the Leveson Report, published in November 2012, Mr Morgan’s assertion that he had no knowledge of phone hacking was described by Lord Justice Leveson as “utterly unpersuasive”.
More recently, Mr Morgan has moved into broadcasting, and was a judge on America’s Got Talent, before being given his own show on US network CNN: Piers Morgan Live. The former Mirror journalist James Hipwell, who also gave evidence to Leveson, described hacking as “a bog-standard journalistic tool” at the paper.
A spokeswoman for CNN said: "CNN has been aware of this interview since before it took place, and has no further comment." At the phone hacking trial running at the Old Bailey, it emerged that former Sunday Mirror journalist Dan Evans had pleaded guilty to hacking phones over 18 months between 2003 and 2005, at which time he left to work at the News of the World.
A petition to see him deported from the US was started after he criticised the country’s gun laws on the programme.
He has also interviewed celebrities including Sharon Osbourne, Cherly Cole, and former Prime Minister Gordon Brown on ITV's Piers Morgan’s Life Stories. 
Additional reporting by PA