By Martin HickmanPhone hacking was rife at the Sunday Mirror and the News of the World and senior journalists were fully aware of the practice, a phone hacking 'whistle-blower' told the Old Bailey today.Dan Evans said he that began phone hacking as soon as he become a staff reporter at the Sunday Mirror in 2003 and did so for almost two years until he joined the News of the World, where he continued using the illegal technique to find stories.On his first day at the NoTW, he told the phone hacking trial, he was given a list of scores of names of celebrities and other newsworthy individuals and their phone numbers - and told to hack them.Making a series of claims about a culture of tabloid newspapers, Evans said that:- Senior journalists on the Sunday Mirror told him his job was to hack phones.- The Sunday Mirror was landing so many exclusives from hacked voicemails it went through a "purple patch" in 2004.- Senior journalists on the NoW were aware of hacking and one asked him at a recruitment meeting: "I know you can screw phones, what else can you do?"- Evans told Andy Coulson he could find exclusive stories cheaply and "there wasn't a lot of doubt what we were talking about."- Although Evans believed he was going to help set up an investigations unit at the NoTW, a senior journalist sent him a list of celebrities and their phone numbers so that he could "hack any interesting names"- News of the World reporters could get "inquiry agents" to obtain phone numbers and phone bills, and received them "within three or four hours"- Confidential medical and tax data about individuals could also be acquired through blagging by others: "Pretty much every piece of private data."- Evans initially used "pay as you go phones" to hack into voicemails but abandoned the technique partly because of cost-cutting - when he got caught trying to access the voicemail of interior designer Kelly Hoppen.- Asked how often he would hack phones while at the News of the World, Evans said: "Probably most days. Might have been the odd lull here and there."Introducing the witness, Andrew Edis, prosecuting, told the jury that Evans had pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy to intercept communications; the first at the Sunday Mirror between 28 February 2003 and 1 January 2005, and the second at the News of the World between 30 April 2004 and 1 June 2010.He had also admitted a charge of intending to pervert the course of justice by giving a false witness statement to the High Court in a civil hacking case brought by Kelly Hoppen between 21 September 2009 and 30 April 2010.After pleading guilty to the charges, Evans had "entered into an agreement" with the Crown Prosecution Service to give evidence in the current hacking trial, Mr Edis said.Speaking softy and appearing to be nervous, Evans said he began hacking at the Sunday Mirror when he got a staff job there in 2003, but suggested the practice had been going on there for some time.He intercepted voicemails throughout his time on the paper, saying that senior journalists "tasked me to do this," he told the court.In 2004, however, he said he received an approach from a senior journalist at the News of the World who knew he was an accomplished hacker. The journalist, who cannot be named, asked Evans to join the NoTW. Evans summarised the approach as: "Could I bring that knowledge wholesale with me to the News of the World?"After informing the Sunday Mirror, Evans secured himself a pay rise and rebuffed the approach. The NoTW journalist tried again, bringing along with him another senior journalist who told Evans: "I know you can screw phones, what else can you do?"Evans again rejected that, saying that he didn't want to become a "pet phone hacker", adding: "The Sunday Mirror had slipped into phone hacking too far."However another NoTW journalist ("the kiss and tell king, a big beast in the tabloid jungle") then tried to headhunt him. Evans told the court that this time he had a breakfast meeting with the editor, Andy Coulson, at a hotel in Aldwych in 2004.Evans told the paid that he could get exclusive stories cheaply, which he said created a "ker-ching" moment.Asked how he might obtain great stories cheaply, Evans told the court that there were two ways. The first, he said, was that he could spend a great deal of his time investigating. He went on: "The other would be to get someone's call lists, work out who they're having a relationship with, hack their phone, get some exclusive stories, work on it for a while and "Boom": you've got something that will shift units from supermarket shelves."He said he could not remember the exact conversation with Mr Coulson, but added "there wasn't a lot of doubt what we were talking about."The court was shown an internal NoTW email from the senior journalist to the paper's managing editor Stuart Kuttner and his deputy, Paul Nicholas on 1 October 2004, urgently asking for £53,000 for Evans.Saying was told he could set up a NoTW investigations unit to rival the paper's "fake sheikh" Mazher Mahmood, Evans accepted the job.But he told the court that on his first day, 5 January 2005, he was called into a small glass office by the NoTW journalist and told: "I'm going to give you my contacts list to get cracking on."Evans was emailed a list of names and told to hack "any interesting names". The email - scrolled quickly on the court screens - included the names of, among others, Craig Bellamy, Gail Porter, Geri Halliwell, Steve Coogan, John Thomson, Elle Macpherson and John Leslie.Evans said that the News of the World was "classic chequebook journalism." Hacking generated the tips and leads, he said, but a cheque would then help open the mouths of one of the participants, helping to create an audit trail which covered up the original source of the story.However, he was caught out hacking Kelly Hoppen's phone in 2009 because "I made a fundamental blunder."He used his own mobile phone to access her voicemail inbox - and got her PIN code wrong. Ms Hoppen, who had "high security", was alerted by her mobile phone provider of the mis-entered PIN and compelled Vodafone to divulge the number of the caller.Asked why he had used his own phone rather than a burner, Evans replied: "Because I am a moron."Asked to elaborate, he said that there was pressure on NoTW staff members to stay at their desks and tight budget control had pruned expenses. Wapping was so isolated, he added, it was not easy to buy a burner phone.Evans is expected to give further evidence when the case resumes tomorrow. Andy Coulson, editor of the News of the World between 2003 and 2007, and Stuart Kuttner, the paper's long-standing Managing Editor until 2009, deny conspiring to hack phones.