{"id":12326,"date":"2011-07-06T20:44:18","date_gmt":"2011-07-06T19:44:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/?p=12326"},"modified":"2011-07-08T01:09:27","modified_gmt":"2011-07-08T00:09:27","slug":"hugh-grant-on-phone-hacking-five-live-news-of-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/2011\/07\/06\/hugh-grant-on-phone-hacking-five-live-news-of-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Hugh Grant on Phone Hacking"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Hugh Grant<\/a><\/strong> has been carving out quite a niche for himself outside the movie business in recent months.<\/p>\n

A few months ago he secretly recorded some highly revealing confessions of tabloid journalist<\/a>\u00a0Paul McMullan for the New Statesmen<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In doing so he revealed<\/a> – months ahead of much of the British media – that the News of the World<\/a> were not just intercepting the phones of celebrities<\/a>, but may have also been hacking the phones of murder victims<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Hugh Grant<\/span> : Ah . . . I think that was one of the questions asked last week at one of the parliamentary committees. They asked Yates [John Yates, acting deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan Police] if it was true that he thought that the NoW had been hacking the phones of friends and family of those girls who were murdered . . . the Soham murder and the Milly girl [Milly Dowler].<\/p>\n

Paul McMullan<\/span>: Yeah. Yeah. It’s more than likely. Yeah . . . It was quite routine. Yeah – friends and family is something that’s not as easy to justify as the other things.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Although Nick Davies of The Guardian<\/a> has doggedly led the way on this story<\/a>, which large parts of the British press have shamefully resisted covering<\/a>, Grant has become something of a celebrity spokesman against the excesses of the tabloid press.<\/p>\n

Speaking on BBC 5 Live<\/a> yesterday to Victoria Derbyshire<\/a>, he not only stated his case eloquently but there was a lively discussion as his former tabloid nemesis McMullan joined him live on air.<\/p>\n

Have a listen here:<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

He also appeared on the BBC News channel later in the day, where his second confrontation with McMullen became very popular on the web (many Reddit commenters<\/a> seemed thrilled the the BBC media player literally goes up to 11<\/a>):<\/p>\n