Trial set to begin for City Slickers trio

by Ben Bold, brandrepublic.com, Monday, 17 October 2005, 11:00am,

LONDON - The trial of two former Daily Mirror journalists, James Hipwell and Anil Bhoyrul, who wrote the paper's City Slickers column, is due to begin.

Tipsters Hipwell, Bhoyrul, and a third man, Terry Shepherd, were charged with breaching the Financial Services Act.

Hipwell and Bhoyrul are accused of creating a misleading impression of the value of investments in the Mirror column, charges that they subsequently denied.

The reporters were fired by the paper in February 2000 after their editor Piers Morgan bought shares in a company they had tipped, the PC firm Viglen. Morgan was then cleared of any wrongdoing by a Department of Trade and Industry inquiry.

The trial of the reporters and private investor Shepherd is expected to last at least six weeks. If found guilty, the pair could face a fine or up to seven years in prison.

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This article was first published on brandrepublic.com