Bloomberg:
British actor Hugh Grant, the star of the romantic comedy “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” sued London’s Metropolitan Police, two months after he said he taped a former tabloid journalist saying phone hacking was widespread.
Grant and Jemima Khan, a columnist for the Independent newspaper, filed a lawsuit July 14 in London, according to court records. In the past week, Grant has condemned News Corp.’s now- defunct News of the World over claims reporters for the tabloid hacked into the mobile phones of politicians, celebrities, and murder and terror victims.
Mark Thomson, a lawyer for Grant and Khan, said in a statement that the suit was filed for the Metropolitan Police to disclose some documents seized by the police in 2006.
Complaints against the police have been a means for possible victims, including former government minister Tessa Jowell, to obtain evidence on whether their phones were accessed. Jowell later filed a claim against News Corp. (NWSA) over hacking.
Grant secretly taped a former reporter for the News of the World talking about phone hacking at the paper. The reporter, Paul McMullan, had previously told Grant his phone had been hacked, according to the actor. He transcribed parts of the conversation and published them in April in the New Statesman.
McMullan told him phone hacking was committed on an “industrial-scale” at News of the World under former editor Andy Coulson, Grant told the BBC last week.
Separately, actor Jude Law, who has already sued News Corp. over phone hacking at News of the World, filed a new complaint in London on June 17, according to court records. The latest suit involves News Corp.’s Sun newspaper, the Associated Press reported.