LONDON — Actor Hugh Grant told a London courtroom Monday about the dark side of celebrity life, describing mysterious break-ins, leaked medical details and hacked voice mails — and laying blame on the entire tabloid press, not just the now-shuttered News of the World.
Grant’s testimony to a judge-led media ethics inquiry capped a tough day for Britain’s beleaguered press. Earlier, the parents of a murdered schoolgirl whose phone was targeted by News of the World described how the hacking had given them false hope that their daughter was still alive.
Grant said he thinks his phone was hacked by Britain’s Mail on Sunday tabloid — the first time he has implicated a newspaper not owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch in the wrongdoing.
The actor said a 2007 story about his romantic life in the paper, owned by Murdoch rival Associated Newspapers Ltd., could have been obtained only through eavesdropping on his voice mails.
He said he could not think of any other way the newspaper could have obtained the story alleging that his romance with Jemima Khan was on the rocks because of his conversations with a “plummy voiced” woman the paper identified as a film-studio executive.
Grant said there was no such woman, but he did receive voice messages from the assistant of a movie producer friend.
“She would leave charming, joking messages . . . and she had a voice that can only be described as plummy,” he said.
The Mail on Sunday said in a statement said that it “utterly refutes” Grant’s suggestion it had hacked his phone.
The inquiry, led by Judge Brian Leveson, plans to issue a report next year and could recommend major changes to the way the media in Britain are regulated.
The first witnesses Monday were the parents of murdered teenager Milly Dowler, whose mobile phone voice mails were hacked after she disappeared in 2002. Her mother told the inquiry that she thought her missing 13-year-old was still alive once she reached the girl’s previously full voice mailbox.
Sally Dowler said that when she could finally leave a message on Milly’s voice mail weeks after the girl disappeared, she shouted: “She’s picked up the voice mails! . . . She’s alive!”
In fact, messages had been deleted by someone working for News of the World while the Dowlers and police were still searching for Milly, who was later found dead.
