Panicky, scared and unsure who to trust: that’s how being phone hacked makes you feel

Jacqui Hames and Hugh Grant in 2018 after they settled their phone-hacking claims against Mirror Group Newspapers and News Group Newspapers. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

I suspect that as you are reading this, your mobile phone is somewhere close by. If it is, scroll through your messages and read or listen to the content.

Now read or listen to them again through the lens of a tabloid journalist – out of context – looking for a story, looking for clues as to your whereabouts, activities, associations, relationships, private thoughts, feelings, opinions, arguments, arrangements. Has someone implicated you in something? What story could they possibly be writing? What could be misconstrued, misinterpreted, manipulated.