Paul McCartney to contact police over phone-hacking

05 August 2011

by Poppy Reid

Sir Paul McCartney has announced he will be contacting UK police after his ex-wife claims their phones have been hacked by a British newspaper.

The former Beatles member was promoting his 9/11 benefit concert via videolink from Cincinnati, Ohio when he said he would file a report as soon as he is finished with his current US summer tour.

"I will be talking to them about that… I don't think it's great. I do think it is a horrendous violation of privacy, and I do think it's been going on a long time, and I do think more people than we know knew about it,” McCartney told the Television Critics Association in Los Angeles on Thursday. “But I think I should just listen and hear what the facts are before I comment."

McCartney’s comments just over a day after ex-wife Heather Mills told BBC News a journalist from Mirror Group used her own quotes from a voicemail in an interview she conducted with the newspaper in 2001.

Although BBC News won’t identify the journalist, the chief target for the hacking is former Daily Mirror Editor, Piers Morgan. Morgan was fired in 2004 and now works in the US as a CNN celebrity interviewer. In 2006, a few months following the couples divorce proceedings; Morgan was quoted the Daily Mail admitting to listening to voice messages McCartney had left on Mills mobile.

"It was heartbreaking," Morgan said in the article. "He sounded lonely, miserable and desperate, and even sang 'We Can Work It Out' into the answerphone."

In a statement, issued through CNN, Morgan described Mills' allegation as unsubstantiated and noted that the judge in the couple's divorce case had cast aspersions on her credibility.

“What I can say and have knowledge of is that Sir Paul McCartney asserted that Heather Mills illegally intercepted his telephones, and leaked confidential material to the media. This is well documented, and was stated in their divorce case. Further, in his judgment, the Honorable Mr Justice Bennett wrote of Heather Mills: 'I am driven to the conclusion that much of her evidence, both written and oral, was not just inconsistent and inaccurate but also less than candid. Overall she was a less than impressive witness.' No doubt everyone will take this and other instances of somewhat extravagant claims by Ms Mills into account in assessing what credibility and platform her assertions are given.”