Paul McCartney to go to police over allegations his phone was hacked

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Sir Paul McCartney is to contact police over allegations his mobile phone was hacked by journalists.

It comes after his former wife, Heather Mills, claimed a senior journalist from the Daily Mirror called her in 2001 and admitted illegally accessing her voicemails.

Sir Paul, 69, said: ‘I am going to talk to the police because apparently I have been hacked. I don’t know much about it because they won’t tell anyone except the person themselves.’

He added: ‘I do think it’s a horrendous violation of privacy. I do think it has been going on for a long time and I do think more people than we know knew about it.’

Miss Mills’s revelations put pressure on Piers Morgan, who edited the Mirror from 1995 to 2004 and who is now a talk show host for CNN in the U.S.

Yesterday, John Whittingdale, the Tory chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport select committee, said Mr Morgan should be questioned by MPs.

The former editor has repeatedly denied any involvement in phone hacking and accused Miss Mills of regularly leaking information about her marital relationship to the media.

Trinity Mirror, parent company of the Daily Mirror, said: ‘Our position is clear: all our journalists work within the criminal law and the PCC code of conduct.’

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Mr Whittingdale said Mr Morgan would not immediately be called in front of the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee, which is investigating phone hacking, because the police inquiry  'has to be the priority '.

Sir Paul McCartney's former wife told BBC2's Newsnight that the journalist made the admission in 2001.

The BBC, which declined to name the journalist allegedly involved, said it was not Mr Morgan, who was editor of the Daily Mirror at the time.

Mr Morgan issued a statement describing Ms Mills' claims as  'unsubstantiated '.

Enlarge   Hack claims: Heather Mills, right, accused Piers Morgan, left, of bragging about listening in to voicemail messages left for her by ex-husband Sir Paul McCartney

Tory MP Therese Coffey, a member of the Culture Committee, called on Mr Morgan to help the police in the light of the  'very strong ' new evidence.

'I just hope that the police take the evidence and go with it and if Mr Morgan wants to come back to the UK and help them with their inquiries - and I don't mean being arrested in any way - I'm sure he can add more light, ' she told Newsnight.

'I think it would help everybody, including himself and this investigation, if he was able to say more about why he wrote what he did in 2006. '

Mr Whittingdale told the BBC News channel:  'What Therese Coffey has said is absolutely right - I would like to see Mr Morgan come back to this country and answer what are some very serious questions. '

He said the committee did not have the power to compel people to return to the UK to face questions.

'Now he may return to the UK, I hope he will return to the UK and I imagine that there will be some questions which will be put to him, possibly by the police on the basis of the evidence that has emerged, ' he said.

'But at the moment, we can't do that. I'm sure the committee will want to talk about it when we meet but Parliament is in recess at the moment, the police investigation is ongoing.

'And the police investigation has to be the priority. '

In 2006, Morgan wrote an article, published in the Daily Mail, saying: 'At one stage I was played a tape of a message Paul had left for Heather on her mobile phone. It was heartbreaking.'

'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 answerphone.'

Tory MP Therese Coffey, left, and Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman, right, have called on Morgan to answer questions on the phone hacking scandal

Miss Mills told Newsnight: ‘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.’

Trinity Mirror, publisher of the Mirror, said all its journalists work within the law.

And Morgan himself yesterday took to Twitter to comment on the calls for him to return, as he tweeted: 'So heart-warming that everyone in UK's missing me so much they want me to come home #swoon'.

But after hearing Miss Mills's accusations, Ms Coffey called on Morgan to return to the UK to help the police with their inquiries in the light of the 'very strong' new evidence.

'I just hope that the police take the evidence and go with it and if Mr Morgan wants to come back to the UK and help them with their inquiries - and I don't mean being arrested in any way - I'm sure he can add more light,' she told Newsnight.

'I think it would help everybody, including himself and this investigation, if he was able to say more about why he wrote what he did in 2006.'

Piers Morgan took to Twitter to make light of the calls for him to return to the UK

Labour deputy leader Ms Harman also called for Mr Morgan to return to this country to answer questions.

She said: 'It's not good enough for Piers Morgan just to say he's always stayed within the law. There are questions about what happened with Heather Mills' phone messages that he needs to answer.

'The public rightly expects that we will get to the bottom of phone hacking. That's why it is so important that the police investigation looks at all the evidence and leaves no stone unturned.

'And it is why we insisted on a full police investigation and the judicial inquiry having the powers and broad remit to get to the bottom of illegal practices in our media.'

Last night Morgan said: 'I have no knowledge of any conversation any executive from other newspapers at Trinity Mirror may or may not have had with Heather Mills.'

Morgan said that in the divorce case between Sir Paul and Miss Mills, Mr Justice Bennett described Miss Mills as 'a less than impressive witness' and her evidence as 'not just inconsistent and inaccurate but also less than candid'.

He added: 'And to reiterate, I have never hacked a phone, told anyone to hack a phone, nor to my knowledge published any story obtained from the hacking of a phone.'