BREAKING: one of 3 people arrested by Op Elveden today is an ex-Mirror journalist; Yard probe has now widened beyond News International—
Sean O'Neill (@TimesCrime) July 04, 2012

It begins…

Well done Sly Bailey of Trinity Mirror- a pay-off of £900,000. A rare talent for looking after her economic interests – a lesson to us all—
Raymond Snoddy (@RaymondSnoddy) June 15, 2012

There’s good news for Trinity Mirror employees today as bonus-happy boss Sly Bailey leaves the company.

She was expected to stay until the end of the year but has had her bags packed six months earlier than expected.

During her highly paid reign the share price slumped some 96% from their height in 2005.

Guido imagines there will be big drinks in the watering holes of Canary Wharf this lunch time…

James “Scottie” Scott, the deputy editor of the Sunday Mirror, has been named as the new editor of the People. Scottie will replace Lloyd Embley, who moved to the vacant weekday editor spot at the Mirror two weeks ago. The appointment is all the more interesting seeing as Scott was intimately involved with obtaining the Ulrika Jonsson story back in 2002. And we all know what happened there… 

Via @Richolden

Tina Weaver and Richard Wallace have been removed from the building, according to staff there.

Incidentally both Tina Weaver and Richard Wallace have been accused of condoning phone hacking. #CircularFiringSquad—
Guido Fawkes (@GuidoFawkes) May 30, 2012

The Mirror and Sunday Mirror are merging into a seven day operation…

UPDATE: Current People editor Lloyd Embley is the new editor of the Mirror.

UPDATE II: Apparently Wallace was not even allowed back to his office to get his things. Unlike Sly Bailey, these two won’t be leaving their jobs £14m better off.

UPDATE III:

Mirror staff apparently standing around stunned. 7-day was on the cards, but summary sacking of Weaver/Wallace a shock.—
Rob Davies (@ByRobDavies) May 30, 2012

One of the Labour MPs at the heart of the phone hacking scandal has called for the police to investigate Mirror editor Richard Wallace’s admission at Leveson that his paper had paid public officials. In a Twitter ding-dong with former Screws Chief Reporter Neville Thurlbeck, who has written extensively today about Wallace’s admissions, Chris Bryant was backed into a corner before eventually declaring that “yes, of course” the paper should be investigated.

Though Bryant immediately backtracked and suggested that there was not enough evidence, there is much more than he had when he demanded the police investigate Coulson and Brooks in 2003. Guido is looking forward to the furious press releases and Bryant popping up on the telly any moment now…

Not a good week for Mirror Group newspapers. Yesterday Guido repeated to Leveson exactly what he has blogged previously, the editor of the Sunday Mirror, Tina Weaver, authorised phone-hacking and blagging according to two journalist sources. Today Heather Mills told Leveson that Piers Morgan could only have listened to her voicemails as a result of illegality.

The BBC’s Newsnight has heard the same stories and probably from the same sources:

When Guido met Lord Hunt he brought up the subject of Weaver sitting on the Press Complaints Commission, he looked uncomfortable and squirmed without giving an answer. Guido told him to get his own house in order. It is a sick joke that Tina Weaver still sits as a member of the Commission.

Mirror hacks are spitting feathers this afternoon as 75 job losses are announced. Given how heavy they have been going on the banker bonus bashing, their own remuneration scheme is coming under attack:

“The total directors’ pay and pensions bill for Trinity Mirror last year was £3.9 million – £1.3 million of which was cash bonuses. Of that, Sly Bailey’s package of pay and pensions was a staggering £1.7m, including a cash bonus of £660,000. However, the share price for Trinity Mirror today is 48p whereas 12 months ago it was 90p.”

The NUJ estimates that more than fifty of those editorial jobs on the line could be paid for with this money.

And the hacks know it.

UPDATE: More news coming out of Canary Wharf. Guido understands that Trinity CEO is currently in Barbados. She left it to Mark Hollinshead to break the redundancy news to staff. When he asked if there were any questions, the entire staff walked out in silence…

Up in front of the Leveson Inquiry today the Daily Mirror editor Richard Wallace showed a fundamental lack of understanding about how the web worked by suggesting that if Guido signed up to some sort of kite-mark code our traffic would increase. He went on to refer to “out and out cowboys” of the blogosphere who the Inquiry has “had some problems with already“. Guido didn’t break the law publishing Campbell’s testimony, unlike Richard Wallace during his showbiz editor career period…

Leveson has already heard that as Piers Morgan’s showbiz editor, Wallace was up to his neck in phone-hacking. He’s been at the newspaper for twenty years, at a time when they have published mocked-up torture photos and the Trinity Mirror Group used the services of Steve Wittamore more than any other media organisation. During Wallace’s evidence giving Counsel for the Inquiry pointed to 681 invoices from Whittamore to the Mirror, hundreds of those illegal invoices would have been approved by Wallace himself. He admitted today that he has not sacked anyone for illegal activity, like aiding, abetting or procuring illegally blagged information, despite the Information Commissioner making the names available. He clearly doesn’t want another former employee speaking their mind… 

Our story about how the Daily Mirror came to have the Ulrika/Sven story – which was undoubtedly phone hacked – has just been referred to at the Inquiry during Wallace’s evidence (covered here). It was, as he himself admits, Wallace himself who presented it to the then editor Piers Morgan. He has just admitted to the Inquiry counsel that if, as he now claims, he “can’t remember the circumstances” of how the story was obtained, he can’t therefore rule out it was hacked. Even those who quibble about the provenance of the story merely quibble about from whom it was hacked.

More recently the Daily Mirror, under Wallace’s seemingly spotless editorial lead, destroyed the life of Chris Jefferies and paid a heavy financial price in doing so. Without any foundation whatsoever they painted an innocent neighbour of a murder victim out to be the perpetrator. They were also fined £50,000 for contempt of court over their atrociously slapdash reporting of the Joanna Yeates murder case.

Who is the real cowboy Mr Wallace?