Western Daily Press (Saturday)
PI tells ‘boring’ Cleese what he learnt about him
APRIVATE investigator has revealed to John Cleese that he found him to be “kind of boring” as he discussed how he would be hired to gather information on highprofile figures.
Daniel Portley-Hanks, now retired, worked in the field for more than 40 years and gave evidence earlier this year at the High Court as part of the Duke of Sussex case about hacking.
Appearing on an upcoming episode of Cleese’s new series The Dinosaur Hour, he discussed how he previously had investigated the 84-year-old Fawlty Towers actor for newspapers.
Discussing how he operated, Portley-Hanks claimed: “I was a private investigator and whenever a story was breaking I had to track that person down so they (the UK newspapers) could go and interview them or contact them.
“I never advertised at all. Journalists in London started calling me and asking me to locate people and do background checks on them and to find out everything.”
He said he would make £206,000 a year as he built a reputation that he could “find out everything about anybody”, claiming that he has the social security numbers for the five last US presidents and “all of their data”.
When asked by Weston-born Cleese what he found out about him, PortleyHanks said: “You’re actually kind of boring, John. They [the media] were very interested in one of your wives down in Texas.”
Cleese also spoke to former Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? host Chris Tarrant about his experience with phone hacking.
Tarrant said: “I just thought it was a rubbish phone that I was using. But then when I split from my wife, I mean it became just open season.
“They were everywhere. They were trying to get at my children. They were obviously trying to talk to my ex...
“It was only later that I began to realise this hacking lark was actually taking place on my phone. I had never heard of it. I thought it was something that happens to somebody else, and that happens in Hollywood.”
The TV star also spoke about how it affected his relationship with his longterm personal chauffeur Jim as he initially thought he was responsible for the information leak.
He described his chauffeur as a “lovely guy” who was one of his “closest friends” after working with him for more than 20 years but said things got tense amid the hacking period.
He added: “I didn’t trust anybody. It was a horrible time. I mean, it also became a kind of sport because they were just everywhere.”
The episode will be aired on GB News tomorrow.