Tearful Elizabeth Hurley tells British court she endured ‘brutal invasion of privacy’ by media
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Actress Elizabeth Hurley and her son Damian outside the High Court in London on Jan 22, during the first week of a lawsuit against Associated Newspapers.
PHOTO: REUTERS
- Elizabeth Hurley testified that her phones and home were bugged for stories, calling it a "brutal invasion of privacy".
- Hurley is suing Associated Newspapers over 15 stories, alleging unlawful acquisition of private information.
- Hurley won £350,000 from MGN in 2015, donating it to Hacked Off, but admits she did not initially engage in "grown-up conversations" about hacking with Hugh Grant.
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LONDON – English actress Elizabeth Hurley tearfully said her landlines and home were bugged as part of a “brutal invasion of privacy” to produce stories, as she gave evidence to the High Court in London during a high-profile privacy lawsuit against British tabloid Daily Mail.
Hurley, 60, is one of seven claimants, including Britain’s Prince Harry and singer Elton John, suing the Mail’s publisher Associated Newspapers for alleged privacy violations dating from the early 1990s to the 2010s.
Associated, which also publishes the Mail On Sunday, has called the allegations against it “preposterous smears”.
Hurley, the claimants’ second witness, is suing over 15 stories which she says featured information obtained unlawfully, including medical details about her pregnancy with son Damian, now 23, and arguments with his late father Steve Bing.
While she gave forceful responses to some questions, at times, she clutched a tissue to her face and wiped away tears during cross-examination from Associated’s lawyer Antony White.
Looking on in court was Prince Harry, who appeared in the witness box himself on Jan 22,
Hurley rejected suggestions that her friends, including John’s husband David Furnish, had passed on information to the press. She said her phones had been bugged and microphones attached to windows in her house “listening to all my conversations”.
“It was deeply hurtful,” she said. In her written witness statement, she said her discovery in 2020 about this “brutal invasion of privacy” had left her crushed.
Britain’s Prince Harry leaving the High Court in London on Jan 22, after watching the day’s proceedings.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Much of Mr White’s questioning centred on whether Hurley could have known about her claims against the Mail sooner, with the publisher arguing that the lawsuits had been filed too late.
She said she first learnt about phone hacking from her former boyfriend, English actor Hugh Grant, in 2015, when he told her that she could launch a claim against another newspaper group, Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN).
She told the court she gave all the damages – £350,000 – she won from MGN to Hacked Off, a press reform campaign group Grant supports, but said she never really had any “grown-up conversations” with him about the issue.
“Sometimes he tried to tell me, but I’m afraid I didn’t really listen,” she said. “We are just silly together... maybe I’m not a very good friend.” REUTERS
