Former Sunday Mirror investigations editor pleads guilty to phone hacking Graham Johnson, the former investigations editor of the Sunday Mirror, has pleaded guilty to phone hacking, becoming the first former employee of the Trinity Mirror title to do so. Johnson, 46, pleaded guilty at Westminster magistrates court to intercepting communications in the course of transmission without lawful authority. The court heard that Johnson, who worked at the Sunday Mirror between 1997 and 2005, hacked a phone to investigate whether a TV soap star was having an affair with a gangster in autumn 2001. After journalists for Mirror Group Newspapers were arrested in March last year, Johnson came forward to confess to a "short and intense" period of hacking lasting three to seven days. The court heard that he had been "shown by a senior person in a supervisory capacity how to access voicemails" and that he was not aware that it was a crime at the time. In mitigation, Johnson's lawyer pointed out that his client had come forward promptly and voluntarily after realising that the hacking was wrong. He is alone in this out of all the prosecutions that occurred [involving phone hacking]. He is unique in that respect. Johnson's lawyer had pleaded for the case to be heard in the magistrates court, where a fine rather than a custodial sentence would be imposed. The three reasons given in mitigation were the fact that Johnson handed himself in to the police voluntarily, the fact that the week-long hacking was "an unintentional infraction of the law which was quickly stopped," and that it was far less serious than cases involving more senior executives at tabloid newspapers with "multiple charges over many years with hacking on an industrial scale." He said that evidence suggested there was "far less culpability" in the Johnson case than many of those already heard in the crown court which involved hacking at the News of the World. When asked to work on the story in October 2001, Johnson initially believed he had been asked to work on "a legitimate gangland-related" story. When he was shown how to hack he didn't realise the practice was illegal. However, after a week of doing so regularly every day he voluntarily stopped because he "did not feel that this was right." In referring the case to the crown court for sentencing, district magistrate Quentin Purdy told Johnson: "Great credit comes your way for your plea of guilty today and even more so for literally turning yourself in ... and throwing yourself to the mercy of the system." However, the gravity of the offence "even after a relatively short period" meant that only a crown court had the powers to sentence. The crime was a "grave intrusion of other people's business and is very serious indeed." He referred the case for sentencing at the Old Bailey on 27 November and Johnson was released on unconditional bail. He had previously worked at the News of the World and has subsequently written about his time there in a book called Hack. Four senior executives of the Sunday paper were arrested last March and the group settled civil claims with several celebrities, including the former England football manager Sven Goran Eriksson. Johnson went to the police the day after the four arrests. All guilty pleas involving hacking cases to date have been made at much later dates and never before at the initial hearing.