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Rebekah Brooks, the former head of Rupert Murdochs British newspaper business, exchanged banter with rival editor Piers Morgan at a dinner party in 2003 about hacking each others phone messages, a court heard on Thursday. The conversation between the then editor of the Sun and former Daily Mirror editor Morgan – now hosting his own TV chat show in the United States – took place at a steak restaurant in south London, according to witness Ambi Sitham. She said Morgan had said to Brooks: I already know what your cover is because Ive been listening to your messages. The witness said Brooks replied: Been hacking into my phone again have you, Piers? Morgan then said: Well youve been looking at my emails, Sitham added. Brooks, known as Rebekah Wade prior to her second marriage in 2009, was editor of the now-defunct Sunday tabloid News of the World, then of its sister daily paper the Sun, before rising to be chief executive of News International, the British newspaper arm of Murdochs News Corp empire.