Heather Mills 'told she was phone-hacking target

Heather Mills has alleged a senior Mirror Group journalist admitted hacking voicemails left for her by her then-boyfriend Sir Paul McCartney.

Ms Mills has told BBC Newsnight that after Sir Paul left the voicemail in 2001, the journalist rang her quoting parts of the recording.

When challenged about how they knew what was said, Ms Mills said they admitted the message had been hacked.

Parent group Trinity Mirror says all its journalists work within the law.

Mirror Group Newspapers is part of Trinity Mirror plc which publishes over 260 titles including the Daily and Sunday Mirror, Daily Record and People.

Trinity Mirror have responded to the allegation by saying: "Our position is clear. All our journalists work within the criminal law and the PCC code of conduct."

Ms Mills told Newsnight that in early 2001 she had a row with her then-boyfriend Sir Paul McCartney who later left a conciliatory message on her voicemail while she was away in India.

According to Ms Mills, afterwards a senior Mirror Group Newspapers journalist rang her and "started quoting verbatim the messages from my machine".

Ms Mills said she challenged the journalist saying: "You've obviously hacked my phone and if you do anything with this story... I'll go to the police."

She said they responded: "OK, OK, yeah we did hear it on your voice messages, I won't run it".

The journalist whom Ms Mills said contacted her is not Piers Morgan, who was the editor of the Daily Mirror at the time.

However, the message in question appears to be the same as one which Mr Morgan later admitted to listening to.

In a 2006 article in the Daily Mail, Mr Morgan referred to hearing a recorded message which Sir Paul had left for Ms Mills.

He wrote "at one stage I was played a tape of a message Paul had left for Heather on her mobile phone".

"It was heartbreaking," Mr Morgan wrote. "The couple had clearly had a tiff, Heather had fled to India, and Paul was pleading with her to come back. He sounded lonely, miserable and desperate, and even sang 'We Can Work It Out' into the answer phone."

Drugs test
If Ms Mills' recollection is correct, the call Mr Morgan listened to had been hacked, and a fellow Mirror Group Newspapers journalist had tried to use it to get a story.

Ms Mills says: "There was absolutely no honest way that Piers Morgan could have obtained that tape that he has so proudly bragged about unless they had gone into my voice messages."

Newsnight has also learned that many other prominent people, including footballer Rio Ferdinand and TV presenter Ulrika Jonsson, also believe they were hacked by the Mirror group.

The programme understands that Ferdinand believes an article in 2003 in the Sunday Mirror about his missed drugs test, which appears to be based on text and voicemail details, involved the hacking of his messages.

And Ms Jonsson has also been told that she was hacked by the Daily Mirror as well as the News of the World in connection with her affair with then England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson in 2002.