Here are some photos of Hugh Grant attending the preliminary court hearing in his case – and Prince Harry’s case – against News Group Newspapers, aka The Sun. Hugh has been to court every day this week, watching the proceedings, taking notes and speaking to his lawyers. Grant has a lengthy history of using his name and position to fight the British tabloids and shine a light on their criminal methods. Like, I’m sure Hugh is a real sh-thead in most parts of his life, but in this narrow situation, he’s great. I also believe that Hugh and Prince Harry are in contact and that they’re strategizing with each other. As for Hugh’s part of the case, there were some big moments from his witness statement on Thursday:

Hugh Grant has claimed the Sun burgled his flat and placed a tracking device in his car in an attempt to obtain stories about his personal life. The actor appeared at the high court on Thursday for a hearing which set out his allegations that the Sun also tapped landline telephones and hacked his voicemails.

In a witness statement to the court, Grant said: “My claim concerns unlawful acts committed by the Sun, including burglaries to order, the breaking and entering of private property in order to obtain private information through bugging, landline tapping, phone hacking and the use of private investigators to do all these and other illegal things against me.”

Grant said that in 2011 his London flat was broken into, with the front door forced off its hinges but nothing stolen. He says the following day a story appeared in the Sun that “detailed the interior of the flat, including the signs of a domestic row”. Grant said at that time he had no idea who had carried out the break-in: “I had no evidence that this burglary was carried out or commissioned on the instruction of the press, let alone the Sun.”

In his witness statement, the actor claims he was prompted to launch his latest legal claim after being passed information which “showed, for the first time, evidence that the Sun had targeted unlawful activity at me and my associates directly”.

Grant said: “I found it astonishing that the Sun carried out these unlawful acts against me at a time when I was preparing to give evidence to a public inquiry on press ethics. Of course, all of this was concealed from me at the time.”

Grant also alleges that during the 2000s the Sun employed private investigators to break into two properties connected to his film production company and his ex-girlfriend Liz Hurley. The actor claims these burglaries were carried out with “knowledge and approval of Rebekah Brooks who was editor of the Sun at the time”.

The court also heard claims about how the Sun allegedly obtained details of Grant’s first child, despite the child’s mother giving birth under a fake name to try to keep it out of the media. Grant alleges the tabloid obtained the fake name using “blagging or … bribery”. He alleges that a senior reporter at the paper commissioned the “blagging” of private information about individuals including “the child of a former prime minister, a very senior female member of the royal family and victims of terrorist atrocities”.

It is trying to block both cases from going to a public trial on the basis that both Grant and Harry waited too long to file their legal paperwork. They argue that they were slow to file their claims because the newspaper publisher concealed the behaviour of its staff.

[From The Guardian]

Wait… not to nitpick, but Hugh’s home was broken into and then the next day, the Sun published a description of his home’s interior and he didn’t think that the Sun was behind it at the time? Granted, the criminality is at every level – can you imagine having any kind of public profile, and the tabloids break into your home, you report the break-in to the police who are (guess what?) on the tabloids’ payroll, so the cops are being paid to slip the police report to the tabloids (when the tabloids did the original crime)? Yeah. That’s exactly what happened. Over and over again, to celebrities, to victims of crime, the victims’ families, to government officials, to anyone who caught the eye of a tabloid editor.

Now, at the moment, Hugh Grant and Prince Harry are merely fighting to take this to trial. That’s why NGN is arguing that they’ve waited too long. If this does go to trial – and who knows – then NGN’s position will be “prove it, prove that we did all these things, you can’t prove it because we did a good job of covering up all of our crimes.”

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.