Tag Archives: Hugh Grant

Hugh Grant: Leveson inquiry has shone ‘disinfectant sunlight’ into ‘infected corners’

Hugh Grant, Tom Watson MP and president of the National Union of Journalists Donnacha Delong were among a number of speakers at a rally calling for media reform last night.

The Livestream video embedded below shows the speeches, with Hugh Grant praising the “progress made since last July”.

The first two modules of Leveson inquiry has shone a lot of very disinfectant sunlight into a lot of very infected corners.

He added that he believes the public has started to realise the scandal is “not just about phone hacking but a wider corruption of police and officials and the intimidation elected politicians”.

We’ve been living for the past 30 years in a media-controlled state.

Giving the example of police production orders calling for journalists to hand over journalists’ footage, Donnacha Delong from the NUJ called for a new regulator to define journalists’ rights and responsibilities.

Improved press regulation which details the rights and responsibilities of the press is potentially something we could use to defend the press against from those kinds of illegitimate requests from those in power.

mediareform on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free

Leveson inquiry releases witness statements

Written witness statements submitted as part of the Leveson inquiry have been released.

Submissions from those who gave evidence to the hearing yesterday (Monday 21 November) are now on the Leveson inquiry website.

Journalism.co.uk is providing full coverage of the Leveson inquiry. News and reaction from the last 24 hours:

Dowler family ‘afraid to open front door’

Sally and Bob Dowler also tell the inquiry of their anger after being photographed retracing daughter Milly’s steps after she went missing

Glenn Mulcaire denies deleting Milly Dowler’s messages

Private investigator at the centre of the hacking scandal denies that he was responsible for deleting voicemail messages on the teenager’s phone while she was missing

Columnist ‘amazed by detail’ in Mulcaire’s notes

Joan Smith tells inquiry that investigator Glenn Mulcaire was an ‘obsessive notetaker’ who recorded information about her whereabouts and private phone conversations

Hugh Grant claims evidence links Mail to hacking

Actor tells Leveson inquiry that story published by Mail on Sunday could only have been obtained by phone hacking, a claim disputed by counsel QC Robert Jay

Mail titles hit back at Grant over ‘mendacious smears’

Mail on Sunday denies claims by actor Hugh Grant that it hacked his phone in 2007, calling his allegations ‘mendacious smears driven by a hatred of the media’

Hacking victims suspected ‘continuous’ intrusion, says lawyer

Graham Shear told the inquiry clients would change their mobile telephone numbers ‘two or three times a year’ to try and keep information private

 

New Statesman: Hugh Grant turns the tables on the phone hackers

Hugh Grant secretly recorded a conversation with former News of the World deputy features editor Paul McMullen, during which the reporter claimed that former NotW editor Rebekah Brooks “absolutely” knew about illegal phone hacking.

The revelation appears in an article Grant has written for the New Statesman, which is guest-edited this week by the actor’s former partner Jemima Khan.

Grant, who believes he was himself a victim of phone hacking, ended up talking to McMullan when his “midlife crisis car” broke down in a Kent village just before Christmas and he was forced to accept a lift from the reporter, who was following him.

He was Paul McMullan, one of two ex-NoW hacks who had blown the whistle (in the Guardian and on Channel 4’s Dispatches) on the full extent of phone-hacking at the paper, particularly under its former editor Andy Coulson. This was interesting, as I had been a victim – a fact he confirmed as we drove along. He also had an unusual defence of the practice: that phone hacking was a price you had to pay for living in a free society. I asked how that worked exactly, but we ran out of time, and next thing we had arrived and he was asking me if I would pose for a photo with him, “not for publication, just for the wall of the pub”.

I agreed and the picture duly appeared in the Mail on Sunday that weekend with his creative version of the encounter. He had asked me to drop into his pub some time. So when, some months later, Jemima asked me to write a piece for this paper, it occurred to me it might be interesting to take him up on his invitation.

So Grant returned to the the Castle Inn Pub in Dover wearing a hidden microphone, and the fruits of his chat with McMullan will be published in this week’s New Statesman. An edited version is at this link.