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World exclusive: Hugh Grant turns the tables on the phone-hackers

The bugger, bugged.

In this week's New Statesman, the actor Hugh Grant secretly records the former News of the World journalist Paul McMullan discussing phone-hacking and David Cameron's relationship with the Murdochs and News International.

In the transcript, McMullan also reveals how Cameron and the News International chief executive, Rebekah Brooks, would often go horse riding together.

The following is an extract from the article:

When I broke down in my midlife crisis car in remotest Kent just before Christmas, a battered white van pulled up on the far carriageway. To help, I thought. But when the driver got out he started taking pictures with a long-lens camera. He came closer to get better shots and I swore at him. Then he offered me a lift the last few miles to my destination. I suspected his motives and swore at him some more. (I'm not entirely sympathetic towards paparazzi.) Then I realised I couldn't get a taxi and was late. So I had to accept the lift.

He turned out to be an ex-News of the World investigative journalist and paparazzo, now running a pub in Dover. He still kept his camera in the car's glove box for just this kind of happy accident.

More than that, he was Paul McMullan, one of two ex-NoW hacks who had blown the whistle (in the Guardian and on Channel 4's Dispatches) on the full extent of phone-hacking at the paper, particularly under its former editor Andy Coulson. This was interesting, as I had been a victim – a fact he confirmed as we drove along. He also had an unusual defence of the practice: that phone-hacking was a price you had to pay for living in a free society. I asked how that worked exactly, but we ran out of time, and next thing we had arrived and he was asking me if I would pose for a photo with him, "not for publication, just for the wall of the pub".

I agreed and the picture duly appeared in the Mail on Sunday that weekend with his creative version of the encounter.He had asked me to drop into his pub some time. So when, some months later, Jemima asked me to write a piece for this paper, it occurred to me it might be interesting to take him up on his invitation.

I wanted to hear more about phone-hacking and the whole business of tabloid journalism. It occurred to me just to interview him straight, as he has, after all, been a whistleblower. But then I thought I might possibly get more, and it might be more fun, if I secretly taped him, The bugger bugged, as it were.

 

The full article is now online. Click here to read the transcript.

38 comments

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swatantra's picture

Its always a joy to hear paparazzi, phone hackers and the NOW get one in the eye, and some of their own behavior thrown back at them. In fact someone should write a whole book devoted to that very subject,it would bea best seller.

Thomas Dyer's picture

Hugh Grants actions would seem to be an admission of guilt, of illegal clandistine recording.

I do hope that the Police and CPS chase this henious criminal to the ends of the earth, haul him in the dock, and make him feel the full force of the law for such blatent disregard of the law in order to prepare a story for the press.

If Private investigators and paps cannot go about their day to day business without fear of being recorded and having their secrets exposed, it will be the end of the (news of the) world as we know it.

John Rutter's picture

I have always liked Hugh Grant he seemed to me like a kid who wandered into a clump of poisoned ivy . he brings out the caring parent in me.

He is what I think is above ever thing else believable.

That's all

john Rutter

Hans Castorp's picture

This dimwitted & smug exercise doesn't exactly set a good precedent, does it?

Tom's picture

To everyone anxious to have a go at Hugh Grant on this, keep this in mind. The tools you need to bug are quite cheap (many are free). You just need to know where to look.

jie4v7i14's picture

Think of how his ego would have been bruised if he was not on the list? Movie stars! They live in a world of their own.

Tom O'Farrell's picture

Great work Mr. Grant. I hope you feel a warm fuzzy feeling of real satisfaction from this. The News of the World started as a dirty tale teller, continued that way for decades, and has always been a pathetic rag.

PhilDuval's picture

I'm not convinced this is such slow news - it points to the just how far the NOW hacking went and who knew about it. The journalist recorded should be made to testify in the investigation.

Hugh Markey's picture

Perfect casting for Richard Hannay! With or without moustache. [Actually, Hugh's the best PM we never had.]

Film fan

Gerty Berwick's picture

@Pickled Lemon. Taping someone you are talking to face to face isn't the same as phone hacking.

jie4v7i14's picture

Hugh bluddy Grant, as Rhys Ifans would say, more fucks per second than anywhere else,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZS8_APv-ZrU

jie4v7i14's picture

yes Sammy Junior, and yes, with the great Cass
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RhriAN7jME

my my.

jie4v7i14's picture

cants, will you feed me,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7wv21bwIRg

Anyway as a down the coast, Sienna and Kiera, shagging Dylan Thomas, I think they'dwet themselves at the oportunity, the disgusting naufgty girls they are, and know they have alwaysssss, bbbb. bollocks.

perry mason's picture

"To read the transcript in full, pick up a copy"

you are not fooling me with that again.
you said that before in the wikileaks issue online and when i brought the print issue, i found it was a total lie.

(lets see if you dare publish this shall we)

swatantra's picture

I understand that vicars read it the NOW, just to check they're not in it that week.

Elaine Decoulos's picture

It really is a pity you removed my comment. Not to worry. I wrote it from Massachusetts, where there is free speech. I can handle any libel claim thrown my way. In any event, everything I said is legally privileged under English law.

Please reconsider and reinstate my comment.

Savash98's picture

Bravo to Hugh Grant. Payback is a bitch, Paul McMullan, and you deserve it a million times more than what you just got. But Hugh got you good. Go drown your sorrow in one of your cheap beers. And don't forget to pay for it. Way to go, Hugh! We're proud of you.

M's picture

I remember when his car broke down I wondered why a hack would help him and he was described as a "friend" wtf?
great article and expose even though he is treading a fine line and i did rasie my eyebrow when i heard he had down this as you cant really complain about your privacy being invaded and then do the same to someone else but I think on this occasion its jusified becasue it wasnt just celebrities they were tapping it was normal people as well.

Maggie May's picture

Good on ya Hugh, as they say here in Oz. These guys don't play by the rules and have stolen our democracy, it takes real courage to oppose them. There is scant coverage of this scandal in Australia but then Rupert owns about 70% of the media outlets. The other 30% are obviously intimidated by Rupert's might.

charlesfrith's picture

Bravo Hugh. Top man.

jie4v7i14's picture

His mate from Notting Hill, Rhys Ifans, would have fascinated to have been hacked, and his view on it would doubt have been couldn't give an eff, or words to that effect.

Mike Scott's picture

Thomas, clandestine recording is perfectly legal in the UK. You can record a conversation as long as at least *one* party in the conversation knows it's being recorded -- and I presume that Mr Grant knew it was being recorded, given that he was the one recording it.

CleverTitania's picture

The irony @Alan Dente & @Pickled Lemon... as 1st Amendment/Free-Speech laws go, ours in the US are among the most poorly written. Australia's, for instance, is much more balanced. It allows for absolute free expression of thoughts and ideas, but it doesn't give legal protection to speech which intentionally lies/misleads or has no function but to incite hatred/violence/etc.

In the states, too many of us mistake what Freedom of Speech is. The idea that it literally means anyone can say whatever they want wherever they want is, as Pickle phrased it, both wrong in fact and spirit.

Alain's picture

So this is why he left that pub without paying the bill.

Andy Blake's picture

No wonder Matthew Freud threw cake at him! Time to pull out those moldy eclairs. The poor man's Colin Firth.

Steven Nott's picture

There is now a news article dated 1999 showing a timeline when i think the hacking possibly really got going. www Conspiracyclinic dot com go to Rupert Murdoch hackergate

Pickled Lemon's picture

@Elaine Decoulos

'I wrote it from Massachusetts, where there is free speech.'

You see, that's precisely the sort of comment that Americans make which annoy everyone else. I have no idea what your comment was, but I will say this.

Britain has free speech in precisely the same sense that America does. You are referring, of course, to the First Amendment. This wonderful piece of legislation protects you from having your right free expression curtailed by the government. It does not, and never has, protected you or anyone else from a private company not wishing to have its resources used to publish opinions it does not share.

Implying in a single, breathtakingly arrogant sentence either that the First Amendment provides protection against private asset holders making choices about the use of their property, or that America is the only country in the world with free speech is wrong both in fact and in spirit.

As for the article, I don't think two wrongs make a right and suspect that Hugh Grant's behaviour may well undermine the moral authority of those who have been the victims of phone-hacking.

harry greenwood's picture

It must surley be a slow day at the NS. So little Hugh Grant played a trick on NOW hack, naughty boy!

Alan Dente's picture

@Elaine Decoulos

'I wrote it from Massachusetts, where there is free speech.'

Ah, the 1st Amendment, cornerstone of that document known as the Constitution. The very same document that separates church and state? The same separation between church and state that is being overturned in courts as I type by your fundamentally unhinged compatriots? Clean your own back yard, then come and preach to us.

Regarding the article above... Lovely to read something largely amoral. Reading articles for moral guidance is tiresome- a man used to intrude on the privacy of others, and has now had his privacy intruded-upon. Something very earthy and real in that. Natural justice, perhaps. Entertaining, certainly.

Hugh Grant. Something of a hero ever since the hooker incident. I have his mugshot on a mug. He doesn't even look sorry. Classic.

Steven Nott's picture

The last message by liufeifei ABOVE do not open, it isn't secure.

Tony Banks's picture

Matthew Freud managed the PR for Hugh until quite recently. Matthew protects and manages celebrity reputations with tabloids like The Sun and NOW.

Steven Nott's picture

The Phone Hacking has been going on a lot longer than people think. News stories are showing that it goes back before 2003 however I know that the phone hacking started in 1998 when i went to news International in wapping and met with Paul Crosbie who was then the Consumer Affiars correspondent and i showed him how to tap into mobile phone voicemail. I showed Paul this because i'd already shown the Daily Mirror how to do it 12 days prior to showing him and he couldn't believe that they hadn't published the story as promised as it was a massive security issue. However, Paul Crosbie from The Sun newspaper did not publish the story, instead they decided to with-hold the secret information and hack into phones themselves for their own use. This was evident that this was happening because whilst BOTH tabloids were promising to unleash the news onto the public, they decided against it, proving to me that they thought it was best to keep it for themselves to gain more news stories and a what great way to do so. I remember the daily Mirror telling me that they had all of their journalists onto the story and were very busy contacting/hacking into voicemail to guage a reaction from the mobile owner.....the reaction seemed as though it was never asked from the mobile owner and they more than likely thought...What a great way to get free inforamtion. By the way, i showed the tabloids how to do this because I was fronting a public awareness camapign trying to get it changed so that it could not be done. I was constantly trying to get Vodafone to change their security methods even having them on Radio 5 live at the BBC with their public relations representative. I soent months telling everyone who should be told ie The Metrolpolitan Police, The department for Trade and Industry, MI6 etc.....I was just trying to get the story out so that the public whether or not celebs or not knew that there was a big security issue. My name is Steven Nott and I live in South Wales in the UK. one day the truth will eventually out and with all of the media attention these days perhaps the public will really get to find out who started it, who kept it for themselves and the fact the officials beind the Police and Government didn't do anything to prevent it from happening....and we're talking 1998 !.

Monty's picture

Nice one, Hugh. I'm so sick of the gutter press and I'm looking forward to some more convictions. And congrats to the NS on the exclusive. And please can you do something about the spam in the comments, it's so 90's.

Geoffrey's picture

A headline worthy of The Spectator! The bugger bugged indeed! I bet the pub chap's thinking "Bugger! Bugger that bugger bugger!" or something along those lines.

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