Mirror Group appeals phone hacking verdict before it's given

In what may prove to be a costly legal blunder, Mirror Group newspapers have launched an appeal against the verdict that they were guilty of phone hacking before it was given.

'One has to say, it does raise the question of how you could know what verdict I was going to hand down,' said the judge Mr Justice Bufton-Tufton today. 'Surely not because I mentioned it in a phone call to a colleague yesterday?'

Former editor of the Daily Mirror Piers Morgan had told the High Court that he 'had no idea mobile phones had been invented'.

'Ask anyone who’s worked with me, they’ll tell you I’ve got a grand old Bakelite telephone on my desk and at home, I’ve got one of those Laurel and Hardy phones with a separate earpiece.

'Naturally I did wonder about these glass and metal rectangles I saw people on the train staring at, or even talking into, but I never made the connection that they might be phones of some kind. I mean, where’s the cord?!?'

His protestations seemed to carry little weight with Mr Justice Bufton-Tufton, who said 'For pity’s sake, man, I’ve heard of them and I’m a High Court judge.'

The Mirror Group strenuously denied any wrongdoing, adding that the judge was an idiot not to have changed his phone passcode from the factory default setting.

'Anyway, I’m sure he wouldn’t want us to publish details of the young female barrister he phoned several times last week, or the Uber he took to her flat on Wednesday night, when his wife thought he was away at a legal conference.'

The judge then issued a revised verdict, clearing the Mirror Group of all past wrongdoings and even giving them a pre-emptive amnesty for their next three crimes.

Image: Newsbiscuit

What do you mean, you’ve had enough of the horrendous, sickening news?

'And as the conflict in Israel and Gaza enters its fourth week, we now bring you pictures of the carnage caused by an Israeli airstrike. And we can tell you that they're even more distressing than anything we’ve shown you before...

'Why are you turning off your television?

'Good, we’ve got you on the radio. These are the sounds from inside a hospital in Gaza City of grief-stricken mothers and fathers, wailing pitifully…

'Why are you hitting your radio with an axe? That’s not going to stop the war, is it?

'I see you’ve locked yourselves in the bathroom and are watching a video of an adorable puppy chasing its tail. We’re going to interrupt that to play you interviews with a Hamas leader and an Israeli politician, in which both try to justify slaughtering thousands of innocent civilians…

'No, don’t throw your device down the toilet. We forbid you to do that!

'And don’t light a bonfire with those newspapers before you've read them. Don’t you know how much trouble we take to bring all the horrifying details of this war right to your doorstep?

'We’ll stop at nothing, you know. We’ll hire town criers to shout this stuff at you in the streets.

'That's because reporting this atrocious conflict has made us all clinically depressed, so we’re damned well going to make sure that all of you are clinically depressed, as well.'

Image: voidx Photos | FreeImages

Cost of lettuces that outlast Prime Ministers now 20% higher than inflation

In a move hoped to prevent newspapers using their produce for ridiculing ridiculous Prime Ministers, the Lettuce Growers Association has urged its members to increase the cost of lettuces by an above inflation amount. A spokespicker for the association said that although they thought the fact their lettuces last longer than Tory Prime Ministers was a fair comparison, it had damaged lettuce sales.

'We are proud of our quality produce and want everyone, especially children to enjoy a healthy diet, but the newspaper campaign was putting kids off lettuces. Parents were writing to use saying their kids were having nightmares on days they tried to make them eat lettuce because of the association with Liz Truss' the spokespicker told us. 'The only way we could prevent a recurrence, was to increase the price, so newspaper hacks would think twice before trying the stunt again.'

'BLTs be damned!'

Elsie Watts, who works in a newspaper accounts department, countered that the stunt was unlikely to be repeated. Watts rejected such a similar expense claim on the grounds that she didn’t think anyone would pay a thousand quid for a lettuce. 'It might work for MPs expenses' she said, 'but I can’t risk it here. It's more than my job's worth, particularly if we hacked the lettuce's answer phone.'

Image: Mae Mu (@picoftasty) | Unsplash Photo Community