Former Daily Mirror editor says newspaper did not hack phones

Speaking to the Leveson inquiry - a two-party inquiry investigating the role of the press and police in the phone-hacking scandal which rocked the UK - Piers Morgan said he was not aware of any phone hacking taking place at the Daily Mirror under his editoship.

"I have no reason ... to believe it was going on," Morgan told the inquiry.

He admitted to hearing a recording of a message from the phone of Heather Mills - Sir Paul McCartney's former wife - but would not say who had played it to him.

Morgan however said it was not unethical to listen to a voicemail message from the phone of Mills. He refused to name the source.

Inquiry chairman Lord Justice Leveson said he was happy to call Mills to see whether she had granted permission for the message to be listened to.

But Morgan said: "All we know for a fact about Lady Heather Mills McCartney is that in their divorce case Paul McCartney stated as a fact that she had recorded their conversations and given them to the media."

Quizzed on the newsgathering techniques of the tabloids, Morgan admitted using the services of Benjamin Pell, a man known to source information from the rubbish bins of celebrities. "It clearly it is a strange thing to do," Morgan told the inquiry. "Did I think he was doing anything illegal? No. Did I think it was on the cusp of unethical? Yes."