A journalist who developed TV shows for Endemol and wrote for several national newspapers has learnt his phone may have been hacked by the News of The World.Tom Rowland, 59, who established the Daily Telegraph’s property desk in the late 80s, a section he edited until 1997, and wrote for newspapers such as The Times, found out from Operation Weeting officers that his details were kept in private investigator Glenn Mulcaire’s notes.

Rowland was told by Weeting officers in August that Mulcaire kept a notebook with information about him. Officers also showed him a “key stroke log” which appears to indicate calls were made from News International offices to his number, followed by the ‘#’ key, used to access mobile phones’ voicemail remotely.

Rowland told Hacked Off: “In a nutshell, I've been given evidence by the police that News International has consistently hacked into my phone from 2004 to 2006.

“One bit of evidence was a call log they had coming out of the NoW offices and the other a notebook kept by Glenn Mulcaire.”

He added: “First of all I was dumbfounded by it. I was extremely annoyed. You don't want to be the source of things going out when you have people talking to you in confidence, which I had whilst working for Endemol.

“I have never chosen to have any dealings particularly with the tabloid press - however it appears they were interested in some of the people that I used to work with who were celebrities.

“After I found out I thought, ’you bastards’. If they wanted to know stuff, they could have called me and perhaps I could have told them certain things. They’ve never even bothered to call me first.”

Rowland believes phone hacking, which has prompted the Leveson Inquiry, may lead to serious journalists having trouble with their ‘public interest’ stories.

He said: “The danger of all this is that you might end up with anybody who’s doing real stories in the public interest having to fight to do their job.”

Rowland, who still works as a journalist, is a core participant in the Inquiry, and contributed from the floor during last week’s seminar, ‘Supporting a free press and high standards – approaches to regulation’.