Murdoch - The Nature Of The Beast

“Mr Murdoch, you must be the first Mafia boss in history who didn’t know he was running a criminal enterprise”. So said then Labour MP Tom Watson to James Murdoch during a DCMS session on phon hacking at the late and not at all lamented Screws. Watson was pilloried for using the M-Word; we have since discovered that he was right. How right came into focus this week.

We already knew that a number of claimants, including the Duke of Sussex, Elton John, Sadie Frost and Liz Hurley had fired an opening salvo against both the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday. Now came the case against News Group Newspapers - the Murdoch mafiosi. They, too, wanted the claims against them struck out. As the charge sheet made for grim reading.

Not only was Harry once more present - this time he was joining by videolink from his home in California - but added to the claimant list was actor and campaigner Hugh Grant. As Harry did with the Mail titles, Grant made a point of appearing personally at the court. The Guardian had the details.

“Hugh Grant has claimed the Sun burgled his flat and placed a tracking device in his car in an attempt to obtain stories about his personal life … The actor appeared at the high court on Thursday for a hearing which set out his allegations that the Sun also tapped landline telephones and hacked his voicemails”. Burglary. Bugging. Landline phone taps. And there was more.

“In a witness statement to the court, Grant said: ‘My claim concerns unlawful acts committed by the Sun, including burglaries to order, the breaking and entering of private property in order to obtain private information through bugging, landline tapping, phone hacking and the use of private investigators to do all these and other illegal things against me.’” And more.

Evening all

“Grant said that in 2011 his London flat was broken into, with the front door forced off its hinges but nothing stolen. He says the following day a story appeared in the Sun that ‘detailed the interior of the flat, including the signs of a domestic row’ … Grant said at that time he had no idea who had carried out the break-in: ‘I had no evidence that this burglary was carried out or commissioned on the instruction of the press, let alone the Sun.’” And more.

“He was prompted to launch his latest legal claim after being passed information which ‘showed, for the first time, evidence that the Sun had targeted unlawful activity at me and my associates directly … I found it astonishing that the Sun carried out these unlawful acts against me at a time when I was preparing to give evidence to a public inquiry on press ethics’”.

He wasn’t finished. “Grant also alleges that during the 2000s the Sun employed private investigators to break into two properties connected to his film production company and his ex-girlfriend Liz Hurley. The actor claims these burglaries were carried out with ‘knowledge and approval of Rebekah Brooks who was editor of the Sun at the time’”. Which raises one prospect.

Ms Brooks, if NGN fails to have the actions struck out, is in the frame for a session on the stand. Remember that one of the reasons she got off the phone hacking charge last time was claiming she didn’t know it was happening. Anything that shows she did know it was happening puts her evidence to the phone hacking trial - and Leveson - in doubt.

Told you there was more to come

And here’s a belter of a coda: “He alleges that a senior reporter at the paper commissioned the ‘blagging’ of private information about individuals including ‘the child of a former prime minister’”. That sounds awfully like Gordon Brown’s second son and the Murdoch press revealing his cystic fibrosis - then claiming they got the information from a “concerned parent”. Hmmmm.

This is what Harry said about NGN: “how can anybody properly trust … a media organisation … when its senior executives and board cover up the truth … and then have the gall to try to ‘strike out’ people’s legitimate claims on the basis that they should have known they had a claim much earlier … when NGN has gone to such great lengths to conceal the truth?”

There was more. “When they have the powers that they have, and where even the Police and the Government of the day are scared to hold them accountable or seek justice against them, they can truly believe they are above the law. And if they’re above the law, then it’s the general public and the country that suffers. It’s really that simple”. Hugh Grant had more.

“I have invested a great deal of time in my campaign work for a better and ethical press … the defendant clearly considers itself above the law and is using the law now in a way I believe it was never intended, that is to further cover up and conceal what it has done … I strongly believe that cannot be allowed to happen and that what it has done must be brought to light”.

And remember - the idea that it only happens to the well-off and famous is for the birds, as countless victims of press abuse will know. It should have been no surprise to know that when the Mail titles were accused of appallingly bad behaviour, the follow-up against Don Rupioni and his clan would reveal yet worse goings-on. This time they should all face justice.

We may finally see what is creeping around under that rock. Stay tuned.

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