A PRIVATE investigator hired by a national newspaper bugged Ledbury celebrity, Liz Hurley’s home, a high court hearing has heard.
Ms Hurley is among celebrities like Elton John and Prince Harry who have taken action against Associated Newspapers the publisher of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers over years of alleged phone tapping and privacy breaches.
The investigator, who was allegedly hired by the Mail on Sunday, bugged Ms Hurley’s home and ex-boyfriend Hugh Grant’s car to unlawfully obtain information about her finances, travel plans and medicals during her pregnancy while she was living in London, the hearing heard.
David Sherborne, who was representing Ms Hurley said in the written submission that she was left feeling “shocked and mortified” by the alleged targeting.
He said a private investigator, acting on behalf of the Mail on Sunday, hacked their phones, tapped landlines, placed “a sticky window mini-microphone on the exterior of her home window” and bugged Mr Grant’s car to obtain “private communications with Mr Grant, her financial details, her travel arrangements and medicals during her pregnancy and birth of her son”.
The written submission said: “It left her sickened to see the snatched close-up picture of her baby’s face published by Associated when he was four months old with the new understanding that this intrusion was the exploitation of unlawful acts, deliberately directed at her with that intention.
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“It angers (her) now to know that she never had a chance against all the artillery of unlawful means and private investigators that Associated used against her and which, unknown to her, underlay the articles published about her.
“She now understands how very real the feeling of being trapped and surrounded on all sides by unknown enemies truly was.”
Details of Ms Hurley’s breach of a privacy claim against Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) were revealed by the release of documents on Monday.
The claim outlined several other allegations made by a number of individuals suing the publisher.
Associated Newspapers denies the claims.
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