Piers Morgan has been less than his usual fluent self since Louise Mensch messed up accusations against him. He is appearing via television link at the Leveson Inquiry this afternoon. His famous retort to Louise Mensch MP was

“I have never hacked a phone, told anyone to hack a phone, or published any stories based on the hacking of a phone.”

The evidence shows he is lying. During his editorship of the Daily Mirror plenty of stories were published that were based on information obtained from phone hacking. Not only was his paper under his editorship hacking, it was illegally blagging private data on an industrial scale. The police led “Operation Motorman” investigation reveals that the Mirror Group paid private investigators some £442,878.73 to illegally procure personal data like tax records, DVLA records, medical and phone records. Invoice by invoice analysis by Guido traces sixty five invoices for potentially criminal transactions back directly to Piers Morgan’s Daily Mirror during his time as editor. A time when he told the DCMS he should be “congratulated” for cleaning up the paper and operating the Press Complaints Commission’s Code of Practice “effectively and seriously”.

Back in August we wrote to the Leveson Inquiry putting the case for Piers Morgan to be questioned and suggested some questions on the charge sheet:

Since that time he has refused to comment on the issue, British law does not allow a witness, even one in America, to “take the fifth”, he will almost certainly try to avoid self-incrimination by evasion. This could be Piers Morgan’s most difficult interview yet…