Strange bedfellows
Hugh Grant and John Cleese with their new best pal – the jailbird private eye who’s a witness for Prince Harry and has been arrested 50 times
hAnGInG out with hugh Grant and John Cleese, there was excitement aplenty for one American visitor to London.
Daniel Portley-hanks, 77, posted grinning selfies of himself with the actors on his Facebook page, along with other tourist snaps of his trip to the uK.
But the Californian was no average tourist, and his photogenic encounters with not one but two British celebrities were not just a matter of luck. mr
Portley-hanks is an American private detective who came to London to give evidence to help Prince harry’s hacking case against the mirror’s publisher.
or, as he himself put it on another public Facebook update, after giving testimony at the Royal Courts of Justice: ‘I kicked ass in court today.’ Following his evidence to mr Justice Fancourt, last Thursday, he spent a few days in London and wrote on Facebook he dined with Grant, 62, who is a founding member of the anti-Press group hacked off, and Cleese, a vocal opponent of British tabloid newspapers.
he wrote on monday: ‘Just had a lovely lunch with my buddy John… and dinner with hugh Grant.’
And he replied to a Facebook friend: ‘hanging out with British celebrities.’
he was also lucky enough to spend time with Fawlty Towers star Cleese, 83 – who constantly tweets about his dislike of tabloids – the day before taking the oath in the high Court witness box, according to another of his Facebook snaps.
It shows the pair shaking hands in the historic Banqueting hall of hedingham Castle in essex, complete with a suit of armour standing behind them. mr Portleyhanks wrote: ‘ I am being interviewed on his talkshow at the very castle where monty Python and the holy Grail was filmed.’
The starstruck American also posted a screengrab of Cleese dressed as his barrister character from 1988 comedy classic, A Fish Called Wanda.
During his courtroom appearance, mr Portley-hanks told the judge how he had lost count of the occasions he had been convicted of criminal offences.
The private investigator said he had been arrested around 50 times, convicted ‘probably more [times] than I can remember’, and had served around eight years in u us federal prisons.
his h most recent conviction wa was for ‘ making threats on beh behalf of a criminal gang’, which the us Attorney’s office said was to extort money from a victim tim who was sent beheading vide videos and a mocked up photo taken take by Portley-hanks of the victim’s vict family tombstone dau daubed with fake blood and a ‘very soon’ date of death.
In L London, in another Facebook snap snap, mr Portley-hanks posed at a hotel ho terrace bar near to the high Court with Grant and former form journalist Graham Johnson, son, a convicted phone hacker who is also helping Prince harry’s case against British newspapers.
mr Portley-hanks told the high Court during his afternoon in the witness box that he had supplied phone numbers, addresses and other information about celebrities to British newspapers over many years.
The mirror denies all the claims and the case continues.
‘Convicted more times than I can remember’