Leveson inquiry: James Hipwell gives evidence - live
Former Daily Mirror reporter jailed over 'City Slickers' scandal, Nick Fagge, Padraic Flanagan and David Pilditch appear
10.30am: Hipwell says hacking was openly discussed in front of editorial management.
Senior editors are considered managers on newspapers. The news editor, the showbusiness editor; they are considered the newspaper managers although they are editorial.
I did not see hacking talked about in front of genuine management of the company although I did see it discussed with senior editorial managers
10.27am: Hipwell says he never saw phone hacking taking place in front of Morgan, or being discussed in front of him.
But he believes he must have been aware of it.
Showbusiness is very close to his heart ... and a lot of people who had worked on the showbusiness desk had come from the Sun [where Morgan had worked] and they were old friends.
Nothing really happened on that desk without Piers knowing about it
He would come and sit on the desk in the morning, very often in the afternoon as well. He was very interested in the stories.
10.26am: Hipwell says he did not report the incidence of phone hacking to his bosses or to Morgan.
It seemed to me that what they were doing was entirely accepted by the senior editors on the newspaper.
I think it was seen as a slightly underhand thing to do, but not illegal. I don't think the illegal nature of it was ever considered... it became I think a daily part of their newsgathering.
10.23am: Hipwell sat just feet away from the showbiz desk and says hacking was commonplace.
Hipwell says:
It was bog standard journalistic tool.
Showbiz reporters would joke and laugh about it. At one point he remembers a member of the showbiz team having deleted a message from the a celebrities voice mail to stop the r! ival pap er, the Sun, hacking in and get the story for themselves.
I would go as far as to say it happened every day. It became apparent that a great number of stories ... would come from that source.
10.22am: Hipwell says he admired Piers Morgan as the editor.
He was the dear leader. He was a very strong minded individual, he had a lot of charm and charisma. He was the newspaper, it was all about Piers. He did a very good job... he edited the paper with a great deal of flair... I was very happy to be involved in that
10.18am: Hipwell is now running through the working culture at the Mirror.
He says his column was outside the normal "chain of command" in the newsroom and that Morgan' was a "very hands on editor".
We were next to the showbiz desk ... The thing about Piers is he was a very hands on editor; he would be out on the news floor, he was the beating heart of the newspaper.
He would go up behind journalists and look at what they were writing on screen.... He would spend half an hour a day sitting with the showbiz team talking about their stories... He seemed very interested in the City, he liked money, he wanted to know how it worked... disadvantaged because he didn't know much about it, but keen to learn... he held column in high regard.
10.15am: The Metropolitan Police have arrested a 52 year old female serving police officer today over payments for journalists, Scotland Yard has said.
It is the eighth arrest under Operation Elveden, the police investigation into police payments.
In total 16 arrests have been made under the concurrent Operation Weeting investigation into phone hacking.
Here is the Metropolitan Police statement:
At approximately 06:00hrs this morning, Wednesday 21 December, officers from Operation Elveden arrested a serving Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) officer on suspicion of mis! conduct in a public office and offences contrary to the Prevention of Corruption Act 1906.
The 52-year-old woman was arrested at a residential address in Essex and is currently in custody at an Essex police station.
This is the eighth arrest under Operation Elveden. In linked investigations; 16 people have been arrested under Operation Weeting and one person arrested under Operation Tuleta.
Operation Weeting is conducting the new investigation into phone hacking.
Operation Elveden is the investigation into allegations of inappropriate payments to police. This investigation is being supervised by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC).
Operation Tuleta is investigating a number of allegations regarding breach of privacy received by the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) since January 2011, which fell outside the remit of Operation Weeting, including computer hacking.
10.13am: Hipwell says he got no "ethical training" at the Mirror.
10.11am: Hipwell is now being asked about a PCC on the share dealing episode which found against Morgan.
The PCC found that Morgan had not taken sufficient care to ensure that his staff were acting in accordance to the code.
10.10am: It is put to Hipwell that according to the former Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan journalists were given a fold-up copy of the PCC code of practice.
I have never ever seen a copy of the PCC code when working at the Mirror at all.
10.08am: Hipwell says there was little "corporate governance" in his experience.
We were not asked if we were sticking to it when we wrote stories ... We would never hear reference to the PCC code of practice ... It's not as if we are accountants or executives ... corporate governance is just not a phrase you hear in the newsroom.
You are not asked ever if you are sticking to the terms of the PCC code because it never came up.
He was not familiar with the code at trade magazines.
10.05am: Hipwell says he wasn't charged with "insider trading", but it was true that he sometimes owned shares in the companies they wrote about in the column.
In 2005 he was convicted and sentenced to six months in prison, half of which was suspended.
He pleaded not guilty at the trial.
10.04am: Hipwell began his career as a journalist in 1991 at Reed Business Publishing.
He worked on Sunday Business and Business Age magazine.
In 1998, he was recruited to start a new column, City Slickers, in the Daily Mirror along with another journalist Anil Bhoyrul.
The column became "very popular and influential".
10.04am: James Hipwell is being sworn in.
9.43am: Welcome to the Leveson inquiry live blog.
A former Daily Mirror financial reporter who was jailed for purchasing low priced stocks and then recommending them to readers will give evidence today.
James Hipwell received a six-month prison sentence in February 2006 for pocketing nearly 41,000.
He mentioned the stocks in the Daily Mirror's City Slickers column and then quickly sold them as values soared.
Hipwell claimed in July that journalists at the Daily Mirror and other newspapers hacked phones.
Publisher Trinity Mirror insists that its journalists work within the criminal law and the Press Complaints Commission code of conduct.
The inquiry will also take evidence from three journalists who wrote about the disappearance of Madeleine McCann from Portugal in 2007 for the Daily Express: Nick Fagge, Padraic Flanagan and David Pilditch.
In March 2008 Express Newspapers paid 550,000 libel damages and printed front-page apologies to the missing girl's parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, over a series of articles falsely alleging they were responsible for their daughter's death.
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