Hugh Grant has settled a High Court claim against the publisher of The Sun newspaper over allegations of unlawful information gathering.
The actor, 63, was suing News Group Newspapers (NGN) alongside Prince Harry for claims which included landline tapping, burglary and “blagging” confidential information about him.
His case was one of several lawsuits which were eligible to go to trial at London’s High Court in January, but the actor has agreed to settle with NGN, his lawyer David Sherborne said.
Grant, famous for films such as “Four Weddings and a Funeral” and “Notting Hill”, has become a prominent campaigner on press reform since the phone-hacking scandal emerged more than a decade ago.
Hugh Grant presents the best director award during the EE BAFTA Film Awards 2024. Pic: Getty Images
He previously brought a lawsuit against NGN in relation to the now-defunct News of the World tabloid which was settled
in 2012, a year after the newspaper was shut down by media magnate Rupert Murdoch following a public backlash.
NGN has always rejected allegations of any wrongdoing by staff at The Sun, having settled more than 1,000 cases without making any admission of liability in relation to the paper.
Among other things, Grant had claimed he was targeted using “burglaries to order”.
In a witness statement, he said: “My claim concerns unlawful acts committed by The Sun, including burglaries to order, the breaking and entering of private property in order to obtain private information through bugging, landline tapping, phone hacking, and the use of private investigators to do all these and other illegal things against me.”
Amid news last year that Grant’s claims would be tried at High Court, it was reported the actor gave the same evidence he gave to the Leveson Inquiry into press standards and ethics in 2011.
Back then, he had spoken about a break-in at his London flat, where the front door was forced off its hinges and a story appeared shortly afterwards in The Sun that “detailed the interior”.
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