Hugh's hacking claim

Saga continues as Grant alleges he was targeted...

11:23 22 November 2011

Hugh Grant has told the Leveson Inquiry into press ethics and standards that voicemail messages left on his mobile phone were hacked by the Mail on Sunday.

The actor made allegations to the high court that he could think of no other way the newspaper could have found the information for a 2007 story about his relationship with then girlfriend, Jemima Khan.

Grant sued the Mail on Sunday over the article - which claimed his relationship with Khan was on the rocks because of his late night phone calls with a studio executive from Warner Brothers - and won damages.

New dad Hugh said that the claim was "completely untrue" and it had him thinking how the newspaper could have come up with such a story.

He told the enquiry:

"I realised there was a great friend of mine in Los Angeles whose assistant is a charming, married middle-aged lady, who is the person who rings you instead of the executive.

"I cannot for the life of me think of any conceivable source for this story in the Mail on Sunday other than the voicemails that were on my mobile telephone."

However, a spokesman for the Mail on Sunday has strenuously denied the claims, explaining in a statement:

"Mail on Sunday utterly refutes Hugh Grant's claim that they got any story as a result of phone hacking.

"In fact, in the case of the story Mr Grant refers to, the information came from a freelance journalist who had been told by a source who was regularly speaking to Jemima Khan.

"Mr Grant's allegations are mendacious smears driven by his hatred of the media."