Dan Evans pleaded guilty to phone hacking while at the Sunday Mirror
Dan Evans received a 10-month suspended sentence after pleading guilty to phone hacking at the Sunday Mirror Reuters

Former News of the World reporter Dan Evans has been spared jail after giving key evidence in the phone hacking trial.

Last year he admitted accessing the voicemails of some 200 celebrities, sportspeople and politicians and listening to more than 1,000 voicemails while he was working at the Sunday Mirror and News of the World.

The 38-year-old became the star prosecution witness in the Old Bailey hacking trial of his former NotW boss Andy Coulson, who was found guilty of conspiring to hack phones and jailed for 18 months.

Evans, of Kilburn, north London, pleaded guilty to two counts of phone hacking – one when he worked at the Sunday Mirror between 2003 and 2005 and one while working at the NotW between 2004 and 2010.

He also admitted misconduct in a public office and conspiring to pervert the course of justice.

His actions were revealed in 2009 when designer Kelly Hoppen, Sienna Miller's ex-stepmother, caught him attempting to hack her phone.

Judge Saunders took into consideration his guilty pleas and his cooperation to give evidence in the hacking trial to make "a clean" break from his involvement in these offences.

He said: "In the circumstances of this case, and in particular the co-operation that Mr Evans has given and has agreed to give the police and the prosecution in the future as compared with the lack of co-operation from others, I do feel able to suspend the sentence for a period of 12 months.

"I would not have done that had Mr Evans not made a clean breast of his involvement in these offences."