Sienna Miller, J.K. Rowling testify in tabloid-journalism inquiry

Actress Sienna Miller and author J.K. Rowling added their voices Thursday to growing testimony regarding British tabloids' information-gathering practices, with Rowling saying she'd found a note from a journalist in her then 5-year-old daughter's backpack, and Miller recalling being surprised and even spat at by paparazzi trying to get a reaction on camera.

Miller accepted about $160,000, an apology and an admission of phone-hacking guilt from News of the World in June after agreeing to end her breach-of-privacy lawsuit. That publication shut down in July in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal.

"For a number of years I was relentlessly pursued by 10 to 15 men, almost daily," Miller said Thursday. "Spat at, verbally abused." She said she'd first accused friends and family of leaking information before learning her phone had been hacked, and felt paranoid, as if she were living in some sort of video game.

"I wanted to understand the extent of the info they had on me," Miller said on the stand. "I wanted to know who knew, who knew all of this information, who had access to my telephone numbers, who had been listening to me." Miller was hot news while she was involved with and engaged to Jude Law.

Rowling alleged she'd been stalked by paps during both her pregnancies, and said coverage would increase after she complained to publications about made-up details in stories about her, according to BusinessWeek.

"If you lock horns with them in this way, if you protest or make a complaint, then you can expect some form of retribution fairly quickly," the "Harry Potter" writer said.

Hugh Grant on Monday accused the Mail on Sunday and Daily Mail of hacking into his cellphone messages; the company that owns those papers immediately denied any wrongdoing, saying its information had come from contacts close to the actor and from women with which he'd been involved.

 

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The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

-- Christie D'Zurilla
Twitter.com/dzurillaville

Photos: Actress Sienna Miller, left, and author J.K. Rowling testify about British tabloid journalism practices at an inquiry Thursday in London. Credits: Pool / Reuters

Hugh Grant says non-Murdoch tabloid also hacked his phone

This post has been corrected and updated, as indicated below.

Hugh Grant joined the family of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler in testifying before a British judge on Monday in the public inquiry into the journalism practices of the U.K.'s tabloids.

The actor claimed that a Mail on Sunday reporter hacked his cellphone in 2007. The revelation was notable in that it was the first time a paper not owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. was fingered for having reporters who would hack into notable personalities' phones in pursuit of exclusives.

Grant said that a 2007 story claiming his relationship with writer Jemima Khan was in trouble could have come only from phone hacking.

"I cannot for the life of me think of any conceivable source for this story in the Mail on Sunday except those voice messages on my mobile telephone," the actor said.

"If someone like me called the police for a burglary, a mugging, something in the street, something that happened to me or my girlfriend, the chances are that a photographer or reporter would turn up on your doorstep before a policeman," he continued.

The "Bridget Jones's Diary" actor also claimed that a detailed description of the interior of his London flat that appeared in the tabloids following a break-in and subsequent police visit could have come only from phone hacking.

Grant, who sued the paper owned by Associated Newspapers Ltd. for libel and won, did not have any hard evidence to prove that they had hacked his phone, but he said, "I'd love to hear the Daily Mail or the Sunday Mail's explanation of what that source was if it wasn't phone hacking."

[Updated, 5:10 p.m. Nov. 21: Associated Newspapers has denied wrongdoing in the stories referenced by Grant.]

The star of "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and "About a Boy" first generated public interest in the phone-hacking practices of British tabloids when he wrote an article in the New Statesman in April 2011, turning the tables on a former News of the World reporter and revealing the tab's shady practices.

Grant was joined by the family of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler -- hacking of her phone after she was abducted gave the family false hope that she was still alive -- whose case led to Rupert Murdoch shuttering News of the World permanently.

Grant isn't the only celeb expected to testify before senior judge Brian Leveson this week: "Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling also will make an appearance.

[For the record, 5:10 p.m. Nov. 21: This post originally said the story about Hugh Grant's relationship with Jemima Khan, which he sued over in 2007, was published in the Daily Mail. It was published in the Mail on Sunday. The Daily Mail separately published a story recently about the birth of his child, featuring information Grant also alleged was acquired through phone hacking. Associated Newspapers has denied wrongdoing in the gathering of information for both stories.]

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-- Patrick Kevin Day

Photo: Hugh Grant in 2009. Jens Kalaene / European Pressphoto Agency

Hugh Grant revisits his role in News of the World's demise

Hugh Grant played a role in revealing the phone-hacking practices used by the News of the World, and in light of the British tabloid's unexpected death this week, he's revisiting the details of his stealthy fact-finding mission to a Dover pub -- an establishment run by former NOTW journalist and paparazzo Paul McMullen.

Grant and McMullen had crossed paths when the actor's car broke down, affording the ex-journo the opportunity to snap long-lens photos for sale to the tabloids, the "Notting Hill" star wrote in the New Statesman in April. Grant, whose phone was among those hacked over the years, got a ride and a chat from McMullen in which the latter boasted about that hacking, detailing "all the dirtiest tactics" of the tab and its relationship with police and a series of prime ministers.

"I was revolted and astonished," Grant told the BBC this week, "and then I went back a few months later to the pub he now runs in Dover and pretended to be dropping in for a pint, and I bugged him. It seemed like symmetry. And I got him talking again about these things, and I published them all in the New Statesman."

Grant, appearing via satellite, said he'd recorded McMullen speaking about money regularly passing hands between the tab's publisher and the Metropolitan Police.

McMullen bantered back from the BBC studio that in fact no money had passed hands between him and the actor that day at the pub, telling Grant, "Two pints of Spitfire cost 6 quid -- you owe me 6 quid," and adding as an aside to the anchors, "He didn't pay for his beer."

A smiling McMullen then validated Grant's version of events and called the actor's undercover work "hilarious."

"I mean, how can Hugh Grant coming into your pub with a silly little pen trying to record you be anything other than hilarious? I didn't mind being turned over."

McMullen said he suspected he was being taped but didn't believe it, joking that "you can't believe an actor who's very well-known would lower himself to such tactics," noting he "was shocked and outraged" before adding, "No, I wasn't at all, it was fine."

So all's good between the former gossip hunter and the celebrity target? Not exactly.

Grant's mood darkened noticeably when talk shifted from prying into the lives of the privileged to the recent allegation that the tab had hacked into a missing 13-year-old girl's voicemail in 2002 -- deleting messages to make room for new ones and in the process possibly hampering the police investigation and giving Milly Dowler's parents false hope that she was still alive.

"You didn't care who got hurt so long as you were able to sell your newspaper. You're not journalists, you have no interest in journalism, it's just money, money, money," Grant said. "You should try real journalism because you're not an idiot, Paul. You could probably do it."

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-- Christie D'Zurilla
Twitter.com/dzurillaville

Photo: Hugh Grant outside the Houses of Parliament in London, where a debate regarding allegations of phone hacking by journalists was being held Wednesday. It was announced the next day that the tabloid News of the World would shut down within days. Credit: Stefan Rousseau / Associated Press