Murdoch Fails To Dismiss Nemesis

Our free and fearless press, and especially the Murdoch and Associated Newspapers titles, has been hoping that a judge would throw out attempts by claimants including actor and campaigner Hugh Grant, and similar claims by Prince Harry and others, to see them in court over allegations of illegal information gathering, including blagging, bugging, and burglary.

Evening all

The defence presented by the Murdoch and ANL titles, for which read the Sun and Mail, has rested on the six-year limit having passed. Counter to that is the assertion that claims could not have been brought because those making the claims did not have the evidence before them until the six years had passed. Today at the High Court, we got the moment of truth.

And, as PA Media’s Twitter feed told us, “A damages claim brought by actor Hugh Grant against the publisher of The Sun will go ahead to a trial following a ruling by a High Court judge”, noting “Mr Grant is bringing legal action alleging he was targeted by journalists and private investigators against News Group Newspapers (NGN) in relation to The Sun only”. The BBC had more.

“A judge has dismissed an attempt from News Group Newspapers (NGN) to block his legal action because he did not bring it within six years … The actor claims private investigators working for the Sun tapped his phone, bugged his house and car, and burgled his home to get stories about him … The publisher denies the claims”. Hugh Grant’s statement goes further.

“He said the company had a ‘vast, long-lasting and deliberate policy strategy plan of false denials and other concealment in relation to The Sun, to prevent me, and others in a similar position, from bringing claims against them’ … This included, he said, false denials to the Leveson Inquiry into Press Standards, a press complaints body, and in public statements”. Ouch!

Do go on. “Cases of this kind in the civil courts have to be brought within six years, and this time limitation has become a major legal battleground in cases against newspapers, because allegations of wrongdoing often go back 30 years. Publishers attempt to argue that cases should not go to trial because alleged victims of unlawful news gathering delayed their legal action”.

However, “Mr Justice Fancourt said, in his judgment, Mr Grant had long believed that private investigators had been paid to look into his private life … However it was only in 2021 when News Group Newspapers disclosed invoices for their payments that Mr Grant had potential evidence capable of allowing him to win his case in court”. Which means what, exactly?

“This judgment does not mean the issue of whether Mr Grant's claim is too late has been decided, but it will now be considered at the trial next year … The judge said there was a realistic chance the actor would establish at trial that before seeing this evidence ‘he could not reasonably have believed with sufficient confidence that he may have been targeted by … the Sun’”.

As is customary nowadays, the BBC and Guardian have reported this news, while most of the rest of our free and fearless press has not, with the sole exception of a magnificent piece of misinformation from the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph, which suggests Grant lost.

Seizing on this aspect of the BBC report: “the court refused Mr Grant permission to sue NGN for allegedly hacking his phone voicemails, as the judge ruled he could have brought a case much earlier”, the Tel announced “Hugh Grant has been denied the chance to take phone hacking claims against the publisher of the Sun newspaper to trial, a judge has ruled”.

Quite apart from misinforming its readers, the Tel managed to miss this rather important line from the Beeb report: “A similar legal argument centred on the claims of the Duke of Sussex is due to be heard by the High Court in July”. Harry is not the only one: the action also features claims by Elton John, Liz Hurley, Sadie Frost, David Furnish, and Doreen Lawrence.

It also, whisper it quietly, includes claims against the Mail titles. Small wonder there has been no comment from the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog, no comment from former Screws and Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan, and nothing from Desperate Dan Wootton, who is too busy spreading malicious misinformation about Haz and Megs.

They think it’ll go away. It won’t. Judgment for the press moves ever closer.

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