‘i refuse to let this be hush money’
Hugh Grant accepts huge payout from Sun owners in snooping case
Hugh Grant accepted “an enormous sum of money” to settle a lawsuit accusing the Sun tabloid of unlawfully tapping his phone, bugging his car and breaking into his home to snoop on him, the actor said this week, after the agreement was announced in court.
Grant said he reluctantly settled because of a court policy that could have stuck him with a huge legal bill even if he prevailed at trial — a reality that could also force fellow claimant Prince Harry to settle. A civil court rule intended to avoid jamming up the courts would have required Grant to pay legal fees to both sides if he won at trial but was awarded anything lower than the settlement offer.
“As is common with entirely innocent people, they are offering me an enormous sum of money to keep this matter out of court,” Grant said on the social media platform X. “Even if every allegation is proven in court, I would still be liable for something approaching £10 million (NZ$21m) in costs. I’m afraid I am shying at that fence.”
The amount of the settlement was not disclosed. NGN said it admitted no liability and said the settlement was in the financial interest of both
parties to avoid a costly trial.
Grant and other claimants have alleged that NGN, a subsidiary of the media empire built by Rupert Murdoch, violated their privacy through widespread unlawful activity that included hiring private investigators to intercept voicemails, tap phones, bug cars and use deception to access confidential information between 1994 and 2016.
Grant is among several celebrities, including actress Sienna Miller, soccer star Paul Gascoigne and Spice
Girl Melanie Chisholm who have settled claims against the publisher.
Attorney Gideon Benaim, who was not involved in the case, said the publisher probably used the “incredibly powerful” rules of the court by making an offer Grant was unlikely to surpass at trial. If a judge awarded Grant less than the settlement offer, he would have faced significant legal costs under the rules.
“Hugh Grant would have been left in little doubt by his lawyers that the offer was pitched so that there was
a real risk that he would not ‘beat’ it at trial,” Benaim said. “Therefore, even though he may have preferred to have fought the case, the financial risks were simply too great.”
The settlement leaves The Duke of Sussex and 41 others scheduled to go to trial in the High Court in January, though their lawyer said settlements were being “forced upon” them.
“The Duke of Sussex is subject to the same issues that Sienna Miller and Hugh Grant have been subject to, which is that the offers are made that make it impossible for them to go ahead,” David Sherborne told a judge this week at a hearing in the case.
The settlement came less than a year after Justice Timothy Fancourt rejected NGN’s attempt to throw out Grant’s lawsuit alleging unlawful information gathering.
“If true . . . these allegations would establish very serious, deliberate wrongdoing at NGN, conducted on an institutional basis on a huge scale,” Fancourt wrote in May. “They would also establish a concerted effort to conceal the wrongdoing by hiding and destroying relevant documentary evidence, repeated public denials, lies to regulators and authorities, and unwarranted threats to those who dared to make allegations or notify intended claims against the Sun.”
Grant said in a witness statement that he could never figure out who broke into his fourth-floor apartment in 2011. The door had been pried off its hinges and the interior looked like there had been a fight but nothing was missing. Two days later, the Sun
had a story detailing the interior and “signs of a domestic row”.
Grant, who previously settled a case against Murdoch’s News of the World for hacking his phone, said he would not go away quietly.
“Murdoch’s settlement money has a stink and I refuse to let this be hush money,” he said. “I have spent the best part of 12 years fighting for a free press that does not distort the truth, abuse ordinary members of the public or hold elected (members of Parliament) to ransom in pursuit of newspaper barons’ personal profit and political power.”