London - A former Trinity Mirror newspaper group reporter has claimed colleagues regularly hacked the phones of celebrities for stories.
David Brown said journalists on the People monitored voicemails, often in an attempt to find out whether the targeted person had a new partner.
He said alleged victims included television presenters Ulrika Jonsson and Noel Edmonds and soap stars Jessie Wallace and Tina O’Brien.
The claims ramp up pressure on the newspaper group, which also publishes the Daily and Sunday Mirror.
On Thursday night, it denied the “unsubstantiated allegations” which it said were made by an aggrieved employee after his dismissal.
Brown, who now works in public relations, was sacked in 2006 for gross misconduct following an internal inquiry.
Executives investigated how a series of stories were leaked from the Mirror to the People and suspected they may have been illicitly sold on.
Brown made the hacking claims in paperwork prepared for an employment tribunal in which he claimed unfair dismissal. But the tribunal never happened because Trinity Mirror chose to settle out of court, paying him £20 000.
The statement said he knew the methods were illegal and if the celebrities knew they had been spied upon they would have taken legal action.
Brown said on one occasion he was sent to Stockholm to speak to a British man who had made contact with Jonsson. He said the information came as a result of “screwing” the celebrity’s mobile phone to listen to her voicemail messages.
Brown also claimed an executive contacted senior figures on all Trinity Mirror’s national titles on the day News of the World royal editor Clive Goodman was arrested in 2006.
He said they were told to deny obtaining information from phone hacking if asked by other newspapers.
Trinity Mirror said: “These unsubstantiated allegations are taken from a draft statement that was never tested under cross-examination, made by an aggrieved employee who had been dismissed.
“All our journalists work within the criminal law and the Press Complaints Commission code of conduct and we have seen no evidence to suggest otherwise.”
Meanwhile, the Metropolitan Police have successfully fought off a High Court bid to force it to notify potential phone-hacking victims of a human rights challenge.
Legal representatives of former deputy prime minister Lord Prescott and four others are challenging the flawed original inquiry into the scandal.
They wanted police to inform hundreds of others of their case to give them a chance to take part in the proceedings. But two senior judges ruled the move was unnecessary. - Daily Mail