Senior BBC executive Alan Yentob is taking the Sunday Mirror to court over alleged phone hacking.

The veteran BBC creative director, who also presents BBC1’s Imagine arts documentary strand, has lodged his compensation suit in the high court and will have a first hearing before Mr Justice Mann at 2pm on Wednesday, it has been confirmed.

It is understood that his case relates to alleged hacking between 2002 and 2004.

Gerald Shamash, from legal firm Steel and Shamash, is acting on his behalf. In the past he has represented other hacking victims in the civil litigation against News International including former football star Paul Gascoigne and Tony Blair’s former spin doctor Alastair Campbell.

Yentob decided to take the action against Sunday Mirror owner Trinity Mirror after being contacted by detectives working on Operation Golding, an investigation spun off from Operation Weeting, the Metropolitan police investigation into hacking at the News of the World.

Yentob’s action is not the first civil case mounted against the Sunday Mirror.

Last November former England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson and three others got the go-ahead to take action against Trinity Mirror. Eriksson is suing the publisher of the Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror along with Coronation Street actress Shobna Gulati, ex-footballer Garry Flitcroft and Abbie Gibson, a former nanny fired by David Beckham over alleged phone hacking.

Yentob has been at the BBC for 46 years and has held some of the most important jobs in British television including controller of BBC1, controller of BBC2 and BBC TV’s director of programmes.

He has been a stalwart of the UK arts scene and in the last 15 years he has become a familiar face to viewers as the presenter of the Imagine series, and has maintained friendships with many stars including David Bowie.

Among the subjects covered by Imagine between 2002 and 2004 were Stella McCartney, Marlon Brando and John Coltrane.

The BBC said it was a private law suit taken by Yentob and had no further comment to make. “The BBC is not involved in this,” said a spokeswoman.

Trinity Mirror declined to comment.