Omid Scobie has claimed that he was asked to hack phones while on work experience and overheard Piers Morgan being told that a story about Kylie Minogue had come from voicemail messages.

Mr Scobie, who co-authored a bestselling biography of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in 2020, made the allegations while giving evidence in a case brought against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) by the Prince and others.

At the High Court on Monday, the 41-year-old insisted he was asked to carry out phone hacking on celebrities while doing work experience at the Sunday People.

Andrew Green KC, for MGN, said the allegation was an “implausible proposition” and accused Mr Scobie of “creating false memories”.

Scobie says he is not Sussexes’ ‘mouthpiece’

The biography of the Duke and Duchess, Finding Freedom, was written in collaboration with sources close to the couple.

However, Mr Scobie rejected the suggestion that he had a close personal relationship with the Duke or that he was a “cheerleader” or “mouthpiece” for the couple.

“I don’t have [the Duke’s] phone number, I have never socialised with him,” he added.

Mr Green asked why in Mr Scobie’s witness statement there was no reference to the Sussexes “expressly authorising” their communications team to cooperate with the journalist on his book.

Mr Scobie replied that although he spoke to the couple’s communication team, who “no doubt would have had to have checked things with Harry and Meghan”, they had not contributed directly. 

MGN – publisher of The Mirror, Sunday Mirror and Sunday People – is accused of unlawful information-gathering, including voicemail interception over a twenty-year period.

The publisher is contesting the cases and has said there is “no evidence, or no sufficient evidence, of voicemail interception” in any of claims.

‘Completely immoral’

The court heard that as a journalism student Mr Scobie spent a week at the Sunday People, where he claims he was given “a list of mobile numbers followed by a detailed verbal description of how to listen to voicemails, as if it were a routine newsgathering technique”.

In his witness statement, Mr Scobie added: “I was taken aback by what seemed completely immoral and I never carried out the task.”

Under cross examination, Mr Green accused the journalist of “either innocently creating a false memory in his desire to be helpful” or “knowingly creating it”.

He added that it was an “implausible proposition” that a student on work experience would have been asked to hack people’s phones.

Mr Scobie said he took offence to the suggestion he had simply made the whole thing up and insisted he was given detailed instructions on how to phone hack by a female journalist, who he refused to name, while on the showbiz desk.

He claimed he was told how to use a landline phone to listen in to voicemails, and was given a “very short” typed list of numbers belonging to celebrities.

He said it “wasn’t presented as legal or illegal”, but that it “felt wrong”.

Piers Morgan was ‘extremely hands-on’

Mr Justice Fancourt was also told that in spring 2002, Mr Scobie undertook another week’s work experience at the Daily Mirror and allegedly overheard Piers Morgan, the paper’s editor at the time, being told that information relating to Kylie Minogue and her then boyfriend had come from voicemails.

“Mr Morgan was asking how confident they were in the reporting and was told that the information had come from voicemails,” Mr Scobie said. 

“I recall being surprised to hear this at the time, which is why it stuck in my mind.”

He described Mr Morgan as “extremely hands-on” and “captivated” by the women working on the paper’s 3AM column.

“He generally seemed really interested in the showbiz coverage in general,” Mr Scobie added.

Mr Green asked him why Mr Morgan had been discussing such a sensitive subject in front of an intern, and if it was true, why he had not come forward with the allegations for more than 20 years.

Mr Scobie said he was now at a “different place in his career” and that it was often “invisible interns” who overheard private conversations.

Mr Morgan said last week that he had no knowledge of phone hacking while editor, calling it “lazy journalism”.

The trial, expected to last for seven weeks, continues.

Read all the developments from the day below