Omid Scobie Tells Court Piers Morgan Knew About Phone Hacking: 'It Felt Wrong'

Royal biographer Omid Scobie, 41, provided some very interesting information when he gave evidence at London’s High Court on the fourth day of Prince Harry’s phone hacking lawsuit against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN.) He claimed that not only did Piers Morgan – who was editor of The Mirror at the time – appear to know about the phone hacking, but he also claimed that he himself was asked to hack phones while he was briefly doing work experience at one of MGN’s publications. Omg!

If you’ll recall, Prince Harry, 38, and a host of other celebrities are suing MGN, which publishes The Mirror, Sunday Mirror and Sunday People, of unlawful information gathering, including phone hacking and the use of private investigators. MGN have previously said there is “no evidence, or no sufficient evidence, of voicemail interception in any of these four claims,” in reference to the four claims (one of which is Prince Harry’s) chosen as ‘representative’ cases. Prince Harry is still expected to fly to the U.K. next month and give evidence himself, and we’re very interested to hear what he has to say!

Omid Scobie Says Piers Morgan Knew About Phone Hacking

The Finding Freedom writer, who is also a close friend of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex may we add, had some very interesting things to say about his work experience at the Sunday People in the spring of 2002. Scobie revealed that he allegedly overheard then-editor Piers Morgan, 58, being told by the entertainment news desk that they had obtained some information about Kylie Minogue and James Gooding, her boyfriend at the time, from voicemails, which he said has stuck in his mind for a long time due to the troubling nature of what he heard.

In his written statement, Scobie said: “Mr Morgan was asking how confident they were in the reporting and was told that the information had come from voicemails. I recall being surprised to hear this at the time, which is why it stuck in my mind.”

In a witness statement, Scobie also said that he was given “a list of mobile numbers followed by a detailed verbal description of how to listen to voicemails, as if it were a routine newsgathering technique.” He added: “I was taken aback by what seemed completely immoral and I never carried out the task.”

Under cross-examination by MGN lawyer Andrew Green KC, Scobie denied that his evidence about Morgan and the entertainment desk was a “false memory” which he made up to help his friend, Prince Harry. Green also asked if Scobie’s journalism career is “to some extent linked to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex,” to which Scobie reportedly replied, “I would say that a lot of that would be due to factors out of my control.” He also said that he was a journalist “trying to do my job” amid claims he was a “cheerleader” for the controversial couple.

Green also said that it was "somewhat implausible" that a student intern, who was only doing work experience at the paper for about a week, would have been asked to hack phones, to which Scobie replied: "I was not a stranger to this [journalist], I had already met them at some events, I knew them through another person. The word hack was not used... this was just a journalist telling me how to do something."

He confirmed that he did not hack any phones, and concluded: "It felt wrong. In the moment you just sit there and listen, it's only as it sinks in that it does not feel right."

What Has Piers Morgan Recently Said About Phone Hacking?

Piers Morgan, who served as editor of The Mirror between 1995 and 2004, has denied involvement in phone hacking, and told BBC News, as per The Independent: "I’ve not been called to give evidence, I know nothing about it." He also described phone hacking as "completely wrong" and "lazy journalists being lazy."

The controversial British journalist went into more detail in an interview with the BBC's Amol Rajan, saying: "Originally I said I had never hacked a phone, never told anyone to hack a phone, and no stories have been published in the Mirror in my time from the hacking of a phone. Then someone pointed out that you can only know the first two things for sure. All I can talk to is what I know: I never hacked a phone; I wouldn’t know how."

Morgan then said he "made it crystal clear to my journalists that we operate within the law," adding: "Can you be absolutely certain what everyone is doing all the time? Of course you can’t, we had hundreds and hundreds of people in the newsroom. I can be certain about what I knew and what I did. No one has ever produced anything to contradict what I’m saying."

The Independent also wrote that Morgan claimed he was "not at all" worried about potential consequences from Prince Harry's lawsuit, and insisted he "couldn’t give a monkey’s cuss" about him coming to the U.K. to "lecture the media once again about invasion of privacy and intrusion, and yet he is the biggest invader of privacy in royal history." He also added: "So I’m not going to take any lectures from him and I don’t give a damn what actions he wants to take. Good luck to you. It’s like being lectured on the truth by Donald Trump."