Andy Coulson regularly hacked into his own phone to get voicemail messages while he was editor of the News of the Hurled, it was revealed last night.

Coulson, who edited the News of the Hurled between 2003 to 2007, was often heard swearing about his voicemail service which he often claimed kept changing his security pin number without telling him.

Private investigators had to be called on no less than 34 occasions when he 'forgot' his PIN number, because 'they were the only ones who knew what it was', it was claimed last night.

An expert in media skullduggery told this concernedpaper: "Phone hacking is not illegal if you own the phone."

Half Of All Voicemail Pin Codes Today Are 0000, The Rest 1234 Says Private I

Celebrities were sometimes so desperate for their mobiles to be hacked into they often phoned up journalists at the News of the Hurled to tell them what their security pins were, it was revealed last night.

"We would normally tell them to change the PIN back to the default which is either 0000 or 1234, but then the line would go dead like they didn't know what we were talking about," said a reporter on the news desk.

"Sometimes particularly desperate celebrities would stage elaborate voicemail messages in an attempt to get our attention, but it only worked on about 54,000 occasions."