A former Mirror Group journalist has advised Sky News that he was requested to offer a Coronation Street actress a bunch of flowers bugged with a listening gadget throughout a go to to a spa.

Dean Piper, a showbiz reporter at The Mirror within the early 2000s, mentioned he was requested to hold out the duty whereas working for the paper’s sister title, The Sunday People.

However, he mentioned he refused and later determined to go away the paper.

Last week, in a privateness case introduced by Prince Harry, a High Court choose discovered one other apply – cellphone hacking – was carried out by Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) from 1996 to 2011.

The choose mentioned hacking was “widespread and habitual” from 1998.

He additionally discovered there was “some unlawful activity” – involving the usage of non-public investigators – in 1995.

Speaking to the UK Tonight with Sarah Jane Mee about his expertise working at MGN, Mr Piper mentioned: “The worst thing I was ever asked – and it was probably ultimately what made me walk from my job at The People – involved Coronation Street star Tracy Shaw.

“She was having quite a lot of points in these days, however she was very large news. She was on the entrance cowl on a regular basis.

“I used to be known as over at one level and mentioned that I used to be going to go to a spa and have a spa break, and I assumed: ‘Brilliant’.

“They said you are going to have a bunch of flowers, and we’re going to put a bug in it, and we’re going to deliver it to Tracy Shaw, and we have booked the room right next door to her, and you’re just going to stay up all night and write down everything that’s gone on.”

Mr Piper mentioned he “point-blank refused” the request.

“There were enough whipper-snappers that want to further their career that probably would have taken the flowers, but that wasn’t morally right, and it’s kind of illegal,” he mentioned.

‘It was a Voldemort state of affairs’

Mr Piper was talking after Prince Harry’s victory in a cellphone hacking in opposition to his former employers.

The choose dominated within the case that cellphone hacking “remained an important tool in the climate of journalism” in any respect three MGN papers – the Daily Mirror, the Sunday Mirror and Sunday People – from 2006 to 2011.

The choose additionally dominated that administrators at MGN – Paul Vickers and Sly Bailey – knew about cellphone hacking however didn’t inform the remainder of the board.

Mr Piper mentioned he was conscious that folks had been cellphone hacking throughout his time working there, however insisted “not everybody was phone hacking”.

“I’m able to talk about it because I’ve got a completely clear conscience about the fact that I was never involved in it. But there were people at the paper that did phone hacking,” he mentioned.

“There were certain people on each desk – they were usually away from the main throng of the editorial team – we knew what they did, and we knew that their exclusives were coming from the phones.”

Mr Piper in contrast the subject of hacking to the primary villain within the Harry Potter collection, Lord Voldemort, who’s referred to by most characters as He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named due to the tradition of worry surrounding him.

The ex-reporter mentioned: “It was a ‘Voldemort’ scenario – as far as you didn’t openly talk about it. But everybody knew what was going on.”

Morgan ‘good boss’ however hacking excuse ‘ridiculous’

The choose, Mr Justice Fancourt, mentioned in his ruling that he discovered it “convincing” that Piers Morgan knew about cellphone hacking when he was accountable for the Daily Mirror – from 1995 to 2004.

After the judgment, Mr Morgan made an announcement outdoors his London residence, by which he mentioned he had “never hacked a phone or told anyone else to hack a phone”.

“There is just one article relating to the prince published in The Daily Mirror during my entire nine-year tenure as editor that he [the High Court judge] thinks may have involved some unlawful information gathering,” Mr Morgan mentioned.

“To be clear, I had then and still have zero knowledge of how that particular story was gathered.”

Mr Piper praised Piers Morgan as a “brilliant boss” who was “very supportive”.

But requested in regards to the judgment and Mr Morgan’s defence, Mr Piper mentioned: “I mean, look, if you’re a national newspaper editor, and you’ve got all of this power, and you’re deciding what the narrative is for the Daily Mirror the first thing you’re going to say is, where did that story come from?

“So I discover that fairly amusing and type of ridiculous as a result of that is the primary port of name as an editor and as a journalist, you wish to know the place the story got here from.”

Read extra:
What were the articles at the centre of the case?
Key findings in the judgment

Mr Piper added: “But there is an open conversation that I feel is important about the way that those newspapers did work in those days.

“And it wasn’t good what they had been doing, and it might be good if folks began to get to the purpose the place they accepted some duty for what they put folks by means of.”

He continued: “You solely have to take a look at the entrance pages in these days to understand what number of tales had been coming from that [phone hacking]. It wasn’t simply the odd one, it was limitless quantities.”

A spokesperson for Mirror Group said following last week’s judgment: “We welcome the judgment that provides the enterprise the required readability to maneuver ahead from occasions that happened a few years in the past.

“Where historical wrongdoing took place, we apologise unreservedly, have taken full responsibility and paid appropriate compensation.”