Denise Welch comes face to face with the Mirror journalist who hacked her phone

Denise Welch speaks to ITV News Correspondent Rebecca Barry before coming face to face with the Mirror journalist who hacked her phone

“I’m not doing this interview because I want sympathy,” Denise Welch tells me as she makes me a cup of tea at her London flat.

She says she’s speaking out because she’s angry at the “disgusting, illegal and despicable” past activities of British tabloids.

The TV actor and presenter has been watching the High Court case brought by Prince Harry - and has invited us to talk about the impact illegal press intrusion has had on her life.

More than 20 years ago she was illegally targeted by The Sunday Mirror. In 2016 Mirror Group Newspapers apologised and paid her damages for intercepting her voicemails and illegally obtaining her private information.

She recalls the moment the police called her into Putney police station and showed her the evidence. 

Denise said: “I sat down and in front of me was a spreadsheet of my life. There were times on there that were so private and so personal, and I had no idea how that information had been garnered.”

She begins to cry as she tells me the heartache it caused.

Denise said: “It was when my youngest son was poorly, in the first 20 months of his life - we nearly lost him twice.

"I still get emotional about it because I was dealing with something so personal and the thought that people were listening in to those private conversations perhaps with doctors, perhaps when we thought we were going to lose him and they were still trying to dig scurrilous dirt on me."

I ask her if it makes her feel violated - “yes” she emphatically replies.

In 2015 the Loose Women presenter sued Mirror Group Newspapers, accusing them not just of phone hacking - but of paying private investigators to bug her hotel rooms.

“My life over several years was listened in to, and to put a listening device into somebody’s bedroom - no matter what is going on in there, it’s none of their business and it destroys families,” she says.

The publisher never admitted bugging her hotel rooms, but paid her substantial damages for unacceptable intrusions.

Denise said: “I’d had a very public battle with depression with mental illness after I had Matty, my eldest son, which resulted in addiction issues, I’ve been very open about those, but at this time I was very much in the midst of those.”

A front-page story revealing her drug use was “devastating” she says.

She added: “I’m not saying my family shouldn’t have found that out, but using those illegal means, was pretty horrendous.”

She says “without a shadow of a doubt” it had an impact on her mental health.

“I can’t say medically whether my episodes of depression or breakdowns, as we used to call them, which were fairly regularly, would’ve been any better without that, but I lived in constant fear - everywhere I went people knew where I was."

Both her sons are now in the public eye; Louis Healy is an actor and Matty Healy is the lead singer of band The 1975. She says they’ve both been affected.

She said: “I was real tabloid fodder. I was always on the front cover in 'drink hell, drug hell, marriage hell' and my kids grew up around that.

"Some of that was my fault. But the reputation that I got was because information was gained by illegal means. And it affected my kids going to school, certainly with Matty - he’s now very wary of the press.”

She only found out she’d been a victim after a former Sunday Mirror journalist handed himself in to police. So ITV News arranged a meeting with the man who admitted hacking her.

Graham Johnson is said to be the only journalist to have ever voluntarily gone to the police and confess to voicemail interception. In 2014 he was given a suspended sentence.

In her kitchen, face to face with the man who once illegally invaded her privacy, Denise tells Graham she’s grateful that he’s taken accountability for what he did.

Graham says he hacked Denise's phone over a few days in 2001. He tells her: “It was an instruction, it was order.

“The culture of a tabloid newspaper was high pressure - get it quickly, get it cheaply and if you don’t get it you’re down the road.” 

Graham gave evidence to support the case now being brought by Prince Harry against Mirror Group Newspapers, an ongoing trial separate from Denise Welch’s claim - which has already been settled.

During the trial, Graham testified that senior figures at Mirror Group Newspapers knew about unlawful activity.

In court he described an incident when private investigators allegedly bugged Denise's hotel room in 2001.

“He said we’re going to place a listening device in there, we’re going to put a bug in there and that would’ve enabled them to listen to when you came in the room and what went on inside the room,” Graham said.

Even after all the years, Denise says it’s “shocking” to hear.

Albeit from opposite perspectives, both Graham and Denise have felt the aftermath of illegal tabloid tactics. Both agree the industry needs to restore trust.

“If newspapers are going to survive and prosper they’re going to have to be accountable,” says Graham, he adds, “they’re going to have to engage with the press reform movement”.

Denise says all those responsible for “serious offences that have ruined people’s lives” must be held accountable. 

A spokesperson for Mirror Group Newspaper said: “Where historical wrongdoing has taken place, we have made admissions, take full responsibility and apologise unreservedly, but we will vigorously defend against allegations of wrongdoing where our journalists acted lawfully.

"MGN is now part of a very different company. We are committed to acting with integrity and our objective in this trial is to allow both the business and our journalists to move forward from events that took place many years ago.”

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