Hacking trial: Paul Whitehouse's ex targeted by Mirror papers after cancer diagnosis

The ex-wife of the comedian Paul Whitehouse has told the High Court that being targeted by the tabloids portion suffering from ovarian crab made it harder to recover.

Fiona Wightman claims she was "door-stepped" and had her telephone hacked by Mirror Group Newspapers successful the 1990s.

The steadfast apologised unreservedly for utilizing a backstage researcher to effort to entree her aesculapian records.

The company's barrister Andrew Green KC said connected Wednesday determination was nary witnesser evidence, documents, telephone day oregon numbers successful journalists' contacts books to suggest they had utilized telephone hacking against Mr Whitehouse and his past wife.

Her dependable sometimes cracking with emotion, Ms Wightman told the tribunal that aft her diagnosis successful 1997, she was repeatedly visited by journalists hopeless for her to archer "her story" astir her cancer.

They included, she said, Dominic Mohan from the Sun newspaper, who introduced himself arsenic the showbiz editor. "It didn't look precise showbiz to me," she said.

In a witnesser connection made nationalist connected Wednesday, she said "to deliberation it is acceptable to look astatine a woman's gynaecological crab and effort to find a mode to marque it nationalist is utterly beyond the pale".

While Mr Mohan worked for Rupert Murdoch's News Group Newspapers, Fiona Wightman alleges Mirror Group Newspapers besides targeted her.

Earlier the barrister David Sherborne, representing Ms Wightman, spent respective hours detailing her claims that Mirror radical journalists with a grounds of telephone hacking and commissioning backstage investigators, tried to get accusation astir her and Paul Whitehouse, a comedian known successful the 1990s for his drama sketches successful The Fast Show.

MGN has admitted paying a "blagger", Christine Hart, to effort to get details of her aesculapian condition.

Ms Wightman described successful her connection receiving a telephone from her surgeon's caput who had been asked for accusation astir her attraction by idiosyncratic purporting to beryllium from Stanmore Orthopaedic Hospital.

"I haven't told them due to the fact that one, I wanted to telephone you to cheque you're OK, and two, due to the fact that it seemed fishy," she said the caput told her.

The "blagging" effort was unsuccessful but Andrew Green KC, for MGN, apologised connected Wednesday successful tribunal saying "it shouldn't person happened, it did and it won't hap again".

Ms Wightman said the property attraction connected her began arsenic she was starting to effort to retrieve from cancer.

"I felt nether immense unit astatine the constituent I was being asked to sermon thing truthful personal," she told the court.

"I genuinely believed it prolonged the clip I took to recover. I was anxious, I was connected edge, my assurance was astatine an all-time low."

Ms Wightman became a taxable of tabloid stories again successful 2000 erstwhile she broke up with Mr Whitehouse, who had an matter with a costume decorator helium had been moving with.

She alleged that her mobile voicemail messages to and from Mr Whitehouse were listened to by journalists and backstage investigators.

They remained friends with shared children contempt the break-up and continued to permission each different voicemail messages, to which she alleges journalists and backstage investigators listened.

In her witnesser statement, she said: "I was young, I had ovarian cancer, and the prognosis for ovarian crab past was awful. I was dealing with infertility.

"My hubby had an affair. It sounds similar a tragedy. I americium not a tragedy, but I was dealing with specified incredibly difficult, achy things."

"For idiosyncratic to person listened to my messages and thought 'there is simply a large communicative here' is conscionable awful."

The Mirror papers ne'er published a communicative astir Ms Wightman's cancer, but they did constitute astir Paul Whitehouse's affair.

Concluding her evidence, Ms Wightman said she had been "really anxious" astir giving evidence.

She said: "I've had to sermon immoderate of the astir idiosyncratic things I person had to spell through. Most hard times successful my life. The astir challenging times. Ironically, it tin present beryllium reported. At the time, I chose not to sermon immoderate of it."

In his statement, Mr Whitehouse, who presently stars successful BBC Two bid Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing, said: "It is called a backstage beingness for a reason."

"MGN's journalists overstepped the mark. And it was not conscionable my beingness they were investigating, it was Fiona's, our daughters' and her parents' lives.

"It makes america some consciousness precise aggravated and determination was zero crushed for them to get involved," helium added.

Prince Harry has refused to settee his assertion against the newspapers, and gave grounds past week.

MGN apologised successful 2015 for utilizing "unlawful accusation gathering" techniques but denies the bulk of Ms Wightman's claims.

It said her allegation that backstage investigators were accessing recognition agencies to get her idiosyncratic accusation were false, arguing that journalists were paying for searches connected the Electoral Roll.

The steadfast besides says her lawsuit should beryllium rejected due to the fact that she failed to instrumentality ineligible enactment astatine the time. Victims of privateness breaches usually person a six-year clip bounds to sue.