Actor Hugh Grant took aim at the
British press Monday, accusing newspapers of using criminals as paparazzi and
the Mail on Sunday of hacking into his voice mail.
Grant said he could not think of any
other source for a story about his relationship with his girlfriend being on
the rocks because of his phone flirtation with a "plummy-voiced
Englishwoman," a story later found false and libelous in court.
The accusation widens the scope of
the British newspaper phone-hacking scandal, which has focused mostly on Rupert
Murdoch-owned titles so far. The Mail on Sunday is not a Murdoch newspaper.
The actor was testifying before the
government-backed Leveson Inquiry into press ethics sparked by public outrage
at the Murdoch's News of the World newspaper.
The best-selling Sunday tabloid was
shut down in July after the revelation that it had hacked into the voice mail
of a murdered schoolgirl, Milly Dowler.
Dowler's mother, Sally, explained
Monday how the hacking had given her false hope that her missing daughter was
still alive.
She described her joy at finding
voice mails had been deleted from her missing daughter's phone: "She's
checked her voice mail! She's alive!"
In fact, the messages had been
deleted by a private investigator working for News of the World, Dowler's
father, Bob, told the inquiry panel.
Sally Dowler's face fell as she
recalled finding out how the hacking had misled her into believing her murdered
daughter was still alive.
Police investigating phone hacking by
journalists say that about 5,800 people, including celebrities, crime victims,
politicians and members of the royal family, were targets of phone hacking by
journalists in search of stories.
The practice involves illegally
eavesdropping on voice mail by entering a PIN to access messages remotely.
Most attention has focused on the
now-defunct News of the World, once the flagship Sunday tabloid of Murdoch's
News International British publishing company.
Murdoch and his son James have been
called to testify before parliament over the scandal, and their company agreed
last month to pay 2 million pounds ($3.1 million) in compensation to the Dowler
family. Rupert Murdoch personally donated 1 million pounds ($1.57 million) to
charity as part of the deal, his company and the Dowlers announced last month.
More than two dozen News
International employees used the services of a convicted phone hacker, the
inquiry panel heard last week.
"This fact alone suggests
wide-ranging, illegal activity within the organization at the relevant
time," Robert Jay, one of the lawyers serving as part of the Leveson
Inquiry, said as the panel began hearing testimony.
James Murdoch has always insisted
that the practice of phone hacking was not widespread.
But Jay said November 14 that private
investigator Glenn Mulcaire's notebooks contained the names of at least 28
people who employed him on 2,266 occasions.
Four individuals -- whom Jay did not
name -- were responsible for almost all the Mulcaire commissions, Jay said.
But the sheer number of names in
Mulcaire's files means the one News of the World journalist jailed over phone
hacking, Clive Goodman, "was not a rogue reporter," Jay said.
Mulcaire and Goodman went to prison
in 2007 after admitting hacking into royal family staff messages.
By Richard Allen Greene, CNN
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