The Phone Hacking Inquiry The Phone Hacking Inquiry

Critics say it is expensive and unnecessary. It is time for our

look at this week's evidence into the Leveson Inquiry, the inquiry

set up to examine the culture, practice and ethics of the press.

At midnight, running down the dark street with a 10 big men, it felt

like such an intrusion into a They arrived here, witnesses whose

lives have been cut by a celebrity or tragedy, ready to face

barristers at an inquiry and a charge. But first, inevitably, the

cameras. Some lived much of their lives with this sort of attention.

But on day five, the inquiry heard from those who came to know it in

the worst of circumstances. From the mother and father to Milly

Dowler who, as they tried to cope with their daughter's disappearance,

traced her last known journey, only learning later that a newspaper

photographer had been had been them. On the Sunday, that

photograph appeared in the News of the World. I can remember seeing it

and I was really cross because we did not see anyone. They had

obviously taken the picture with some sort of telephoto lens. How on

earth did they know we were doing that walk on that day? It felt like

such an intrusion into a really, really private grief moment. Time

and again they checked Milly Dowler's phone messages just in

case. Finding that perhaps one day she may be alive. It clicked onto

hobos -- boy smelt so I heard her voice and it was, I thought she was

alive! It was them, really. When we were told about the hacking, that

was the first thing I thought. was not Milly Dowler who accessed

her voice mail, it was the News of the World. And what about

celebrities? Hugh Grant has made a new allegation against a different

newspaper. The Mail on Sunday ran an article saying that my

relationship with my then girlfriend was on the rocks because

of my persistent late night flirtatious phone calls with a

studio executive from Warner Brothers. The story was false and

he sued. But remained suspicious. realised that although there was no

executive from Warner Brothers, whom I had any kind of relationship

with, there was a great friend of mine in Los ne in Los o runs a

production coduction cch is associated with Warner Brothers and

whose assistant is a charming, married, middle-aged lady, English,

who, as happens in Hollywood, is the person who brings you. And she

did leave him messages. I cannot for the life of me think of any

conceivable source for this story in the Mail on Sunday, except those

voice messages on my mobile telephone. The Mail on Sunday was a

to deny having got that or any story through phone hacking and

accused Hugh Grant of mendacious smears. Comment that would have

consequences. But the actor told them about the way the press had

treated the mother of his recently born child and her family.

mother, the 61-year-old grandmother, of my child went out into a street

and took a picture of a man sitting in a car with a great big camera.

He turned round, took a load of pictures of her, wound the window

down and shouted abuse at her. As she crossed the road, he minister

at -- minister with his car, drove very fast. He then did a U-turn,

and minister again with the car. A story suggested you do not need an

intimate or personal relationship with a celebrity to be a target. A

professional one will do. When stories about Elle Macpherson were

leaked to the press, she confronted her business adviser. Can you give

me an example of when I have done this? She said, you have done 11

things. I said, tell me what they are. I said, you cannot put me in

here, tell me I have done something and then not tell me what I have

done. She said, I am not allowed to tell you. Later it turned out the

leak had come from hat for smells but by then this woman had been

wrongly accused of being an alcoholic. -- from leaked voice

mails. And then the story of this couple who lost two children. Their

daughter was killed at school by another girl. Inaccurate press

articles played down her murderous responsibility, affecting her

brother. He then took his own life and was discovered clutching the

cuttings. The journalists... If you do away with a press can plate, it

can have a chilling effect. There can be malicious lies. Just because

a person is deceased, you can write what you want? By the afternoon,

Lord Justice Leveson had a message for the Mail's response to Hugh

Grant's allegations. I am extremely concerned about ensuring that the

arguments relating to this inquiry are conducted here, not elsewhere.

What newspapers are allowed to publish is at issue. And what

privacy, in public or private, people should expect. A man who

became known for playing a man who promoted himself also provided

evidence. One can argue that there are those who make their Korea from

being famous. Those people use the press to raise their profile. --

make their career. It is a two way street. They exploit the press.

They are in the fame game. Those people have an impact. I have not.

I have never set myself up as a paragon of virtue, as a model of

morality. I simply do what I do and that is what I like to be judged on.

He could not recall how many kids and health schemes making their

target. But he remembers one involving Andy Coulson. Someone I

counted as a casual friend, more a friend of a friend, called me and

told me I was about to be a subject of a steam, as it were. I was about

to receive a phone call which would come from Andy Coulson's Office.

There was a girl in Andy Coulson's office who was going to speak to me

on the phone, the phone call would be recorded, and she would try to

entice the to talking about intimate details of my life.

People... We are here because somebody has to represent all of

those other people who have not the stomach to be here. I want to make

it clear that of course there is a personal element to this but it is

not just about ours, it is about other people. On the seventh day,

the story of how hacking was exposed at the paper that Andy

Coulson once edited. This was the lawyer who fought the News of the

World on behalf of the footballers union chief who believed his phone

had been hacked. The inquiry heard the more they learned a packing,

the more the paper's lawyers worried and the more the pay-outs

on offer went up. The News of the Wo Woen caught out. It

seemed such a flurry of activity. It culminated in a conversation

between the News of the World and myself where they offered �50,000.

This settled on �425,000 in damages. -- they settled. This could make

you think suing papers was easy and lucrative. Not so said a woman who

married and divorced a footballer and had only one way to find a

libel action. I had to put the house on the market. I was told I

needed to come up with �200,000. You know, to go into court. Where

was I go in to find that money? All of my money was in my home.

accepted that she had invited the press into her life. I would like

things to be... If they are going to be reported, to be reported

correctly because I do not know how if you have... I have been asked,

if you sold your wedding, if I had written a book, if I had chosen to

go on to a programme on television, then I am asking for it. In a week

that saw the popular press vilified, it was the Guardian that had to

apologise to a son for and mistaken print. This regarded the lawyer

whose close attention to two Grand's evidence was noted on

Twitter. The story was wrong. -- to Hugh Grant's. No celebrity suffered

a wrong anything like that enjoyed by Gerry and Kate McCann. After

their daughter was abducted, they received sympathy, suspicion and

An article on 26th November 2007. You're accused him of selling her

into white slavery. -- them. They said we stored her body in a

freezer. They found themselves powerless to respond.

desperately wanted to shout out that it was not true. But when it

is you against the powerful media you just cannot do anything. We

were trying to make them stop. libel suit stopped the stories but

memories of the paparazzi waiting outside their house remained.

were several occasions where they were banging on the windows asking

to come in. I was scared. After they gave an interview to the

magazines they had an angry editor of news of the world on the phone.

He was irate when he found out about the publication which

happened and was berating us. He wanted us to do lane to view. He

beat us into submission, Beverley. He wanted us to do an interview.

Long after their daughter's abduction, more anguish. I felt

violated. I had written these words at the most desperate time of my

life. It was my only way of communicating. There was absolutely

no respect shown. It made me feel very vulnerable. I could not

believe it. It did not stop. It was not a one day thing. That whole

week was traumatic. I could not believe the injustice. I have read

through my diary entries and I can hardly believe them. On day eight a

film star who defeated that paper's publishers in court. Sienna Miller

was paid �100,000 after admitting her phone had been hacked. She long

wondered how photographers knew where she would be and why she

could not escape them. I would find myself at midnight running down a

dark street on my own with ten men chasing me. The fact that they had

cameras and a hand made an illegal. If you take away the cameras you

have got a pack of men chasing a woman. It is a very intimidating

situation to be in. Before she worked out how the press got

information she expected that it came from closer to home. I had

been only careful to tell my mother, sister and two of my best friends.

Journalists call not saying that they knew about this. I accused my

family and people who would never dream of selling any of my

information. Max Mosley won his own victories against the press. He got

a privacy action. He could not work out what gave journalists the right

to judge him. He's so that I was guilty of unimaginable depravity.

It reflects badly on his imagination. Apart from that, it is

not a sensible comment. I would not have any idea why he said those

things. All I know is that he has his preoccupation with Prue --

schoolboy smut. He may have some sort of strange sex obsession. It

is not up to me to go into his bedroom and a film and write about

it. It is his business. He spoke of the impact history about his sex

life had on his son who died of an overdose. The story had the most

devastating effect on him. He could not cope. It was so awful. It was

bad for me but for my son to see it all over the newspapers and the

weather was horrible. For Max Mosley the problem was less the

Bulls the press had to follow and the one -- than the ones that could

not be enforced. For many it is not just about what is published but

about what journalists do. Like JK Rowling explaining the battle she

had been fighting to keep her daughter out of the press. She does

in her first year at primary school. I opened her school bag in the

evening. Among the usual letters from school of and debris that

every child generates, I found an envelope addressed to me and a

journalist. Your letter was from a journalist. I was so angry that my

five-year-old daughter's school was no longer a place of complete

security from journalists. She also faced the photographers at home and

in the street. I have gone to such lengths to prevent the

photographing of my children. I have complained to the PCC and had

been to court. I would like to say that particularly with regard to

photographers outside our house I think a very good example of this

is to journalists from a Scottish tabloid took up residence outside

their house in a car at a time when I was absolutely unaware that there

was interest in me. They were just sitting there. I asked someone who

works for the publication to ask them what they wanted. The response

we received was that it was a boring day at the office. By family

and I were under surveillance for their amusement. It was not even a

pretence that there was a story. It is difficult for people who have

not experienced that to understand how terrible it is. What do they

want? What they think they have got's it is incredibly threatening.

I had at this point a ten-year-old daughter and a virtually new one

baby. We were besieged friar week. The photographers had disappeared.

For the first time in a week I was able to get out of the house with

my daughter and the baby. On this occasion I saw the photographer

taking a picture from across the street. At what my daughter behind