LONDON, Aug 3 (Reuters) - Heather Mills was quoted on Wednesday as saying a journalist at British publisher Trinity Mirror , owner of the Daily Mirror tabloid newspaper, had hacked her phone before she was married to former Beatle Paul McCartney.
Mills told the BBC the journalist had confronted her with sensitive phone messages, an accusation that widens a scandal over phone hacking by British newspapers that has so far centred on titles owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation .
The BBC said the messages were left by McCartney, whom Mills married in 2002. The couple separated four years later.
"He started quoting verbatim the messages from my machine, and…I’d wondered why they had already been heard, listened to, when it says ‘heard messages’," Mills told the BBC.
The BBC said the journalist worked at the Mirror group, although Mills does not mention the journalist’s employers in the audio clip provided by the BBC.
"I said you’ve obviously hacked my phone and if you do anything with this story, because they were obviously very private conversations about issues we were having as a couple, I said then I’ll go to the police," she added.
She went on to say the journalist admitted hacking her phone and agreed not to use a story based on the messages.
"All of our journalists work within the criminal law and the PCC code of conduct," said Nick Fullagar, Trinity Mirror’s director of corporate communications, referring to Britain’s Press Complaints Commission industry watchdog.
Allegations of phone hacking at the News of World Sunday newspaper, owned by News Corp’s British newspaper arm News International, last month prompted the newspaper’s closure and the resignation of News International chief Rebekah Brooks.
CNN talk show host Piers Morgan, who once edited the News of the World and later the Daily Mirror, has repeatedly denied any role in the phone hacking scandal.
Mark Lewis, lawyer for victims of phone hacking by the News of the World, on Monday confirmed that he had instructions to take legal action against Trinity Mirror on behalf of other unnamed phone hacking victims
