Nikki Sanderson suffered years of physical and verbal abuse because of newspaper stories she believes were based on phone hacking and other illegal activities by journalists, a court heard.
The 39-year-old actress made the allegation as she gave evidence as one of four claimants in the trial involving Prince Harry at the High Court in central London.
She is suing Mirror Group Newspapers over 37 articles in the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and People newspapers between 2003 and 2009.
In a witness statement filed as part of her claim, she said the stories had a “huge impact” on her life and left her in a “constant state of paranoia”.
Sanderson, who currently stars in the TV soap Hollyoaks, claimed that the newspapers created a narrative that she was “stuck up, nasty, rude, promiscuous, and a party girl”. It led to a backlash from the public which resulted in her hair being set on fire by a group of girls in the toilets of a nightclub, she said.
The actress also claimed that she was also hurt by MGN’s decision to fight her legal claim despite settling cases brought by her mother, her friend and fellow Coronation Street star Tina O’Brien, and her ex-boyfriend Danny Young.
Ms Sanderson said: “MGN abused me when I was a child and they continue to abuse me now by dragging this out.”
MGN has apologised “unreservedly” to Ms Sanderson for using investigators to obtain private information about her on four occasions in 2004 and 2005. However, the newspaper group argues there is no evidence of any wider use of phone hacking against the actress.
Andrew Green KC, who acts for MGN, suggested to Ms Sanderson that the newspapers were more likely to have been tipped off about her holidays, nights out and shopping trips by members of the public. He also suggested several of the stories were “trivial” and not as distressing as she claimed.
Ms Sanderson described one particular story, which referred to her father as a “love rat” and a “womaniser” who had been married four times, as “extremely hurtful”.
“I just remember it was horrifically traumatising at the time,” she told the court. “I just remember crying a lot.”
She said in her witness statement: “To have my personal life splashed over the papers for people to indulge in was heart-breaking. This is not celebrity gossip; it is my life.”
Ms Sanderson added: “MGN’s illegal activities have had a huge impact on how I navigated my life both at the time and to this day. I can remember that I used to feel in a constant state of paranoia. It was horrible because it made me feel like I couldn’t trust anyone as I would presume that they were selling stories to the press.”
She also told of her anger at discovering how MGN journalists had carried out “surveillance” of her from the age of 19.
“I was a young girl at the time and they were hiring random men to follow me - they could have done anything to me,” Ms Sanderson said. “How did MGN know that they hadn’t hired someone who was capable of rape or murder?
Ms Sanderson referred to a story about her going on holiday to St Lucia with her boyfriend when she was aged 20.
She said it was frightening to know that people were hiding in the bushes watching her and added: “It’s creepy, like those things you see on serial killer dramas”.
The actress said: “The fact is these people [MGN] were in positions of power and I was a child and a young female, and I was attacked by people who were more powerful than me. I did nothing to deserve this treatment.”
The hearing continues.
