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James Manning/PA via AP
Hugh Grant arriving at court in central London in April.
British actor Hugh Grant has been given the legal green light to proceed with his lawsuit against the parent company of The Sun, over allegations it used illegal methods to gather information on him for stories.
The Notting Hill star is suing Rupert Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers (NGN) over allegations the British tabloid was behind his home’s burglaryin 2011, and tapped his phone.
But he failed to convince Judge Timothy Fancourt he should be able to sue over his allegations of voicemail interception. On Friday local time Judge Fancourt said the claim was made too late – outside the six-year limit for civil cases, Reuters reported.
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But Judge Fancourt said when it came to Grant’s allegations of, “land line tapping, bugging, blagging, burglary and instructions to private investigators to do any of those things”, whether the claims were made too late would be decided at trial, which is set to take place in January, 2024.
When he appeared at London’s High Court in April, Grant told the court his claims were related to, “burglaries to order, the breaking and entering of private property in order to obtain private information through bugging, land line tapping, phone hacking and the use of private investigators to do all these and other illegal things against me.”
Grant’s London flat had been broken into in 2011, but nothing had been stolen. It was not until 2022 he came to believe The Sun was behind the break in.
At that same hearing, NGN said it was “unreal” that Grant did not have enough information to file a suit earlier than he did.
After the judge’s ruling on Friday, Grant said in a statement, “I am pleased that my case will be allowed to go to trial, which is what I have always wanted – because it is necessary that the truth comes out about the activities of The Sun.
“As my case makes clear, the allegations go far wider and deeper than voicemail interception.”
An NGN spokesperson said they were pleased the phone hacking allegations had been thrown out, but added, “NGN strongly denies the various historical allegations of unlawful information gathering contained in what remains of Mr Grant’s claim”.
In 2012, Grant received a settlement from NGN over phone hacking at its now-defunct newspaper News of the World. In 2018 he settled a phone hacking case against Mirror Group Newspapers.
The British actor’s claim is being dealt with alongside Prince Harry’s lawsuit against NGN over alleged phone hacking.
Prince Harry is expected to testify in a London courtroom in June and will be the first British royal to do so since the 1800s.
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