Denise Welch is full of praise for Prince Harry and Nikki Sanderson - and it’s easy to see why

After Denise Welch was shown evidence that more than 20 years ago a journalist from the Sunday Mirror was instructed to illegally hack her phone to find out information regarding the health of her youngest son, the TV presenter has come face to face with the reporter himself.

The 65-year-old shared her story during a tearful interview with ITV’s Rebecca Barry, who has spent the past seven weeks in court listening to the Prince Harry vs MGN case, discussing how the intrusion had impacted her mental health before chatting to Graham Johnson, the journalist who bugged her phone.

According to ITV News, Mr Johnson is reportedly the only journalist to voluntarily go to the police to confess voicemail interception and received a suspended sentence after MGN apologised to the Loose Women star and paid damages in 2016.

Denise previewed the conversation to her 403,000 Instagram followers: “Several years ago, like many people, I discovered I’d been hacked by Mirror Group Newspapers. A journalist, Graham Johnson was poacher turned gamekeeper and admitted he’d hacked my phone illegally on the strict instruction of his editors at The Sunday Mirror."

Denise claimed: “He also admitted to staking out my hotel room and witnessing 2 private investigators placing a listening device in my bedroom. Although I knew about this, today I met him to hear his side of the story.”

The Loose Women star continued in her declaration that it she found it ‘upsetting and chilling’ to find that there is hardly ‘any accountability’ on journalists who partake in the unlawful information gathering techniques such as phone hacking and ‘blagging’ before turning her focus to those who have recently held a spotlight up to the scandal including Prince Harry and Nikki Sanderson.

The Duke and former soap star, who happens to be a good friend of Welch, were just a couple of high-profile claimants to appear in London’s High Court over the past month to sue the Mirror Group Newspapers for their intrusion to gain personal information for articles.

Denise Welch added: “I am disgusted and appalled by the behaviour of the press and I applaud Prince Harry for taking his case this far. If they did this to me, imagine the lengths they went to with the Royal family. These behaviours have ruined lives and I sincerely hope those responsible are held accountable.”

In light of Denise’s declaration and her stance on Prince Harry’s case, a spokesperson from MGN told ITV: “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.”

Justice Fancourt, the judge presiding over Prince Harry’s court case, heard the concluding statements yesterday but could take up to several months to determine the outcome.