Piers looks in his Mirror

The London Stock Exchange is believed to have widened its inquiry into the sharedealings of Piers Morgan, editor of The Mirror newspaper, after it was disclosed that he bought shares worth UK£10,000 in Corporate Executive Search, a company that was tipped by the sacked “City Slickers” columnists on the title. The Department of Trade and Industry is already looking into his UK£20,000 investment in Viglen Technology shares on the day prior to favourable reporting by City Slicker journalists James Hipwell and Anil Bhoyrul. The two pundits have since been sacked for gross misconduct after an inquiry by Trinity Mirror, the paper’s owner, concluded that they had breached the Press Complaints Commission’s code by dealing in shares in companies that they had tipped. Sir Victor Blank, chairman of Trinity Mirror, said then that the board was satisfied that Mr Morgan did not know what the paper’s financial pages would carry on the following day. When the affair first broke, the editor denied frequent contact with the sacked men. In the latest instalment of the saga, it has been revealed that Messrs Morgan, Hip-well and Bhoyrul all purchased shares in CES at five pence on the day before trading in the company’s securities was suspended at six pence on its announcement of an Internet deal.