Piers Morgan pushed to address hacking claims
(CBS/AP) LONDON - British lawmakers say CNN interviewer Piers Morgan should return to Britain to answer allegations that the newspaper group he worked for hacked the voicemail of Paul McCartney's ex-wife.
From 1995 to 2004, Morgan edited the Daily Mirror tabloid, part of the Trinity Mirror PLC group. McCartney's ex-wife Heather Mills has accused a reporter working for Trinity Mirror of intercepting her voicemail messages in 2001, but has not specified which newspaper.
CBS News correspondent Charlie D'Agata reports Morgan built his entire career on spilling celebrity secrets with his insider knowledge and top-shelf access.
Mills has made it clear the journalist who called her that day was not Morgan himself, but the allegations seem to echo Morgan's own words in an article he wrote in 2006 in the Daily Mail, says D'Agata.
"At one stage I was played a tape of a message Paul had left for Heather on her mobile phone, it was heartbreaking... he sounded lonely, miserable and desperate and even sang 'we can work it out' into the answer phone," wrote Morgan in the article.
Conservative legislator Therese Coffey, a member of a Parliamentary committee examining Britain's phone-hacking scandal, said Morgan should return to London to assist in the investigation.
Labour Party deputy leader Harriet Harman said Thursday that Morgan had "questions to answer." He has denied any knowledge of phone hacking.
Mills, too, has a credibility problem, however. After her contentious divorce from McCartney in 2008, the judge in the case said that Mills had an "explosive and volatile character" and was prone to make-believe, adding in his judgment that Mills' testimony had been inconsistent, inaccurate, and "less than candid."
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/08/04/earlyshow/main20088001.shtml?tag=strip
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