One of the key moments of the 2011 Leveson Inquiry into press standards came when the Daily Mail’s then-editor, Paul Dacre, took to the witness box to accuse Hugh Grant of pursuing “mendacious smears driven by a hatred of the media”. Dacre was responding to Grant’s allegation that a 2007 Mail on Sunday story could only have been obtained by hacking his voicemails.
The Mail has always vehemently denied any involvement with phone hacking or any other unlawful activities. So it came as a shock when, two weeks ago, a high-profile group including Prince Harry, Elton John, Liz Hurley and Baroness Doreen Lawrence announced that they were launching a legal action against the Mail’s publisher, Associated Newspapers.
Their claims of unlawful activity by the papers go well beyond phone hacking to the alleged hiring of private investigators to bug cars and homes. They also include allegations of the accessing of bank accounts and other financial transactions through illicit means, and the payment of police officials, with corrupt links to private investigators, for inside information.
