Sacked as editor of the Daily Mirror

In the wake of the Abu Ghraib torture scandal, Piers Morgan was sacked as editor of the Daily Mirror 'with immediate effect' on 14 May 2004, after refusing to apologise to Sly Bailey, then head of Trinity Mirror, for authorising the newspaper's publication of fake photographs. The photos were alleged to show Iraqi prisoners being abused by British Army soldiers from the Queen's Lancashire Regiment. Within days the photographs were shown to be crude fakes. According to official British sources, the photographs were apparently taken in North-West England. Under the headline 'SORRY..WE WERE HOAXED', the Mirror responded that it had fallen victim to a 'calculated and malicious hoax' and apologised for the publication of the photographs. However, Morgan refused to admit that the photographs were faked, and stated that the abuse shown in the photographs is similar to the sort of abuse that was happening in the British Army in Iraq at the time.