Heather Mills - Leveson inquiry

Heather Mills: 'It's just crazy and you can't do them for anything'


Paul McCartney's former wife, Heather Mills, has gathered almost 65 hours of video footage of alleged paparazzi "abuse and harassment" against her, she told the Leveson inquiry into press standards today.

Mills said she had started filming her encounters with journalists after she complained to police about an incident in Brighton and was told that she needed more evidence.

She said the footage showed paparazzi acting dangerously, "driving over pavements when mothers were pushing prams" and trying to force a hole in a garden fence to see into her house.

An edited extract from the footage was played to the Leveson inquiry this afternoon, including a clip from a car crash when a photographer tried chasing her.

Speaking on the video, Mills said: "They all drive dangerously through red lights holding their cameras. It's just crazy and you can't do them for anything."

One photographer, asked why he was following Mills, told the video: "Because a newspaper's paying me to be here. We don't just turn up, we do it because we're being asked to do it."

Mills was also asked about a series of voicemail messages left by then-husband McCartney following an argument, in which he begged her to come back and sang to her.

She said she was approached by a Trinity Mirror journalist who had heard the message, and warned the journalist that if it was published she would take action. The story never appeared.

Robert Jay QC said the journalist could not be named because an investigation is ongoing. He said the journalist was not employed by the Daily Mirror and had not been working under the supervision of Piers Morgan.

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