Alastair Campbell told the High Court Piers Morgan told reporters to break into bank accounts Piers Morgan
Piers Morgan told reporters to hack into Alistair Campbell’s bank account in the hope of finding questionable transactions, it has been claimed in the High Court.
Morgan, then editor of the Daily Mirror, reportedly asked reporter Gary Jones in 1999 to obtain details of Campbell’s mortgage payments.
Campbell, who was then director of communications for Downing Street, said he believed the newspaper’s editor was “two-faced”. He said Morgan pretended to be a friend while secretly authorizing Jones – now editor of the Daily Express – to target his bank accounts.
Campbell said he had first-hand knowledge of the operation of the Daily Mirror, having previously served as the newspaper’s political editor: “I find it very hard to believe that any editor, especially Mr Morgan’s As a down-to-earth person, he would not have known this and demanded to know where the big stories were coming from.
“Nor do I believe that people with access to highly sensitive information and holding senior positions in government with obvious security concerns would have been targeted in this way without the editor knowing about and approving such methods.” “
The allegations were made in the ongoing phone hacking trial, where more than 100 individuals, including Prince Harry, are suing Mirror Group Newspapers over claims of illegal behavior at the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and People.
Campbell, who now presents the Rest Is Politics podcast, told the court: “The two-faced conduct of Mr Morgan, being a de facto ally of the Prime Minister and the Labor government, while at all times he and his senior team are using to find stories designed to destabilize that government by illegal means diminishes the anger I feel about this, as does the fact that for so long This practice has been strongly denied.
Campbell suggested that the Daily Mirror targeted their bank accounts while trying to follow up a story about Peter Mandelson, who was forced to resign as a cabinet minister in late 1998 after taking an undisclosed loan to buy a house. was forced to.
He said: “I believe the Daily Mirror decided, at the time of the Mandelson story, to fish around in my bank and mortgage cases in the hope that they too would reveal something they deemed newsworthy.” believe.”
Campbell alleged that Jonathan Rees’ Southern Investigations obtained the correct account numbers for his and his partner Fiona Miller’s mortgage. Jonathan Rees then sent the invoices to the Daily Mirror inquiring into Campbell.
Campbell said he believed the Daily Mirror had also employed Jonathan Rees to “fraudulently” document the details of Peter Mandelson’s mortgage application. It formed the basis of a story co-written by Gary Jones.
Campbell said he was particularly angered to learn that Morgan’s biography told a different version of events surrounding Mendelson’s mortgage scam: “At the same time that I know he’s going to be under Southern Investigation for breaking into my bank.” (via Mr Jones). Narrative, his book reveals that he was trying to ingratiate himself with the Prime Minister and himself in Downing Street, and with Peter Mandelson who Hua was pretending to sympathize with him.
