Paul McCartney says press hacked his phone

LOS ANGELES (AFP) ― Ex-Beatle Paul McCartney said Thursday he will contact authorities about the “horrendous violation of privacy” over the British press’ alleged hacking of his phone, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The British singer and musician made a video statement to the Television Critics Association while he was in Ohio for a concert.

McCartney did not specify which newspaper allegedly hacked his phone.

“I’ll tell you that when I go back after this tour, I’m going to talk to the police because I apparently have been hacked,” McCartney said, according to entertainment industry website The Wrap.

“I don’t know much about it, but I do think it’s a horrendous violation of privacy, and I think it’s been going on for a long time and more people than we’ve heard about knew about it.”

The statement came a day after his ex-wife, Heather Mills, said a journalist from the Mirror group of papers admitted to hacking her phone.

In an interview with the BBC on Wednesday, Mills alleged that a journalist confessed to phone hacking in 2001 after she confronted him over his knowledge of details about a fight she had in private with McCartney, then her boyfriend.

The telephone hacking scandal has gripped Britain for weeks and currently surrounds the domestic tabloid News of the World, whose owner Rupert Murdoch folded the paper in July amid the controversy.

But proof is also mounting that other British titles took part in the illegal practice.

Former journalists from the Daily Mirror and the Sunday Mirror, both owned by the Mirror Group, have already confirmed that hacking was common at their papers.

The Mirror group includes the Daily Mirror, the Sunday Mirror, People, Scotland’s Daily Record and Sunday Mail. They all belong to Trinity Mirror, which owns hundreds of regional papers.

Trinity Mirror told BBC on Wednesday that its journalists work within the law and the Press Complaints Commission code of conduct.

Trinity Mirror launched an internal investigation over the past few months of their editorial practices and journalists, though it said the probe did not pertain to a particular claim.