Hugh Grant Accuses Mail On Sunday Of Hacking

Actor Hugh Grant has said he suspects his voicemail messages were hacked by The Mail on Sunday.

He told the Leveson Inquiry into media standards there was "no conceivable" way a story the newspaper published in 2007 about a Warner Brothers employee could have been written without his messages being listened to.

Grant sued the newspaper for libel over the story and won.

It is the first time the actor has implicated a newspaper not owned by Rupert Murdoch.

When pressed, Grant admitted he did not have solid proof of any wrongdoing by The Mail on Sunday, but added: "I would love to hear what the explanation of that is, if it wasn't phone hacking."

A spokesman for The Mail on Sunday said: "Mail on Sunday utterly refutes Hugh Grant's claim that they got any story as a result of phone hacking.

"In fact in the case of the story Mr Grant refers to the information came from a freelance journalist who had been told by a source who was regularly speaking to Jemima Khan.

"Mr Grant's allegations are mendacious smears driven by his hatred of the media."

The statement prompted a response from Ms Khan on Twitter denying she had any part in the story.

"MoS say a freeland journo heard story about "plummy voiced woman" from a source close to me. That's not true as the first time I heard anything about this was when I read about it in the MoS," she wrote.

The 51-year-old actor's comments come as part of his evidence about invasions into his privacy at the hands of tabloid journalists.

Grant also condemned photographers for hounding the mother of his baby daughter .

Last week, the inquiry heard the High Court had recently granted an emergency injunction to stop the paparazzi from hounding her.

The hearing was also told that Mr Grant's former girlfriend received threatening phone calls during the summer, at a time when he was doing numerous media interviews condemning the tabloid press.

"They staked out a new mother for three days," he said.

The Daily Mail rejected allegations that it secured information about the girl's birth from a hospital source.

"In fact the information came from a source in his showbusiness circle more than two weeks after the birth," it said in a statement.

"We then spent a further two weeks seeking a response to the story from his publicists.

"None was forthcoming and indeed we did not publish anything until Grant's publicist issued a statement describing the baby as the product of a 'fleeting affair'."

Grant also spoke of commissioned photographers who have "no mercy and no ethics" and would chase him and girlfriends at high speeds.

"I suspect they were the ones following Princess Diana when she died," he added.

At times Mr Grant appeared frustrated with the nature of some of the questioning. He insisted that his motivation for campaigning on the issue of press intrusion has not been motivated by coverage surrounding his arrest in 1995 for an encounter with a prostitute in Los Angeles.

"I totally expected there to be tons of press, the press storm that happened. I have no quarrel with it, no quarrel whatsoever."

The actor also told the inquiry that he felt it was fashionable to "hate" him in Britain after earlier saying: "I just do slightly gnash my teeth when these adverse comments or hatchet jobs are based on wrong facts or lazy reporting. But, of course, everyone is entitled to their opinion."

The parents of murdered school girl Milly Dowler told earlier in the day how media intrusion gave them false hope their daughter was still alive after she went missing in 2002 .

Sally Dowler told the inquiry about her excitement as it appeared Milly had been accessing her voicemails.

She said: "I rang her phone and it clicked through on to her voicemail and I just jumped and said: 'She's picked up her voicemails Bob, she's alive'."

It later emerged that the News Of The World commissioned private detective Glenn Mulcaire to hack Milly's phone after she disappeared.

Mulcaire was jailed along with the NOTW's former royal editor Clive Goodman in January 2007 after they admitted intercepting voicemail messages left on phones belonging to royal aides.

After being told by police that her daughter's phone had been hacked, Mrs Dowler said she was unable to sleep for three days.

Mulcaire later issued a statement denying ever deleting messages from Milly's mobile and repeated his "sincere personal sympathy" for the family.

More household names, such as actor Sienna Miller , comedian Steve Coogan, author JK Rowling and singer Charlotte Church , will also head to the High Court as the inquiry into press standards prepares to hear from victims.

:: Read more on the day's evidence as it happened:

Lord Justice Leveson's inquiry will also hear this week from several other alleged victims of media intrusion .

The inquiry began its formal hearings at the Royal Courts of Justice in London last week.

The first part of the inquiry is looking at the culture, practices and ethics of the press in general.

The second part, examining the extent of unlawful activities by journalists, will begin once detectives have completed their investigation into alleged phone hacking and corrupt payments to police, and any prosecutions have concluded.

The witness schedule:

:: Monday November 21

Bob and Sally Dowler, Hugh Grant, Graham Shear (lawyer), Joan Smith (writer, previous relationship with MP Denis MacShane).

:: Tuesday November 22

Steve Coogan, Mary-Ellen Field (supermodel Elle Macpherson's former business adviser), Garry Flitcroft (former Premiership footballer), Margaret Watson (mother of murder victim Diane Watson, stabbed at school).

:: Wednesday November 23

Gerry McCann (father of missing Madeleine), Sheryl Gascoigne (ex-wife of footballer Paul), Tom Rowland (journalist), Mark Lewis (lawyer, represents some phone hacking victims).

:: Thursday November 24

Sienna Miller, Max Mosley, JK Rowling, Mark Thomson (lawyer), HJK (anonymous witness - had a relationship with well-known person).

:: Monday November 28

Charlotte Church, Anne Diamond, Ian Hurst (former British Army intelligence officer), Jane Winter (Northern Ireland human rights campaigner), Chris Jefferies (landlord of murdered Joanna Yeates).