Hugh Grant called on police to launch a new criminal investigation into the owners of The Sun, saying the job was not being done “by any means” after Prince Harry settled his privacy request on Wednesday.
News Group Newspapers (NGN) agreed to pay “substantial damages” and apologized to the Duke of Sussex for “serious intrusion” by the Sun between 1996 and 2011, and admitted that “incidents of activity illegal” were carried out by private investigators working for the newspaper.
Grant also settled a privacy claim against NGN in 2024, saying he could have faced a bill of up to £10 million even if he had won.
The actor said the two incidents showed that a civil case was “not the right instrument” to get to “the real truth” of what happened at the newspaper.
Former deputy Labor chief Lord Tom Watson, who also reached a settlement with NGN on Wednesday, said a legal team would pass a file to the Metropolitan Police.
On Friday, the force said there had been no active investigation into allegations of phone hacking or related matters.
“We await any correspondence from the parties involved, which we will respond to in due course,” a spokesperson said.
Grant said NGN had “played” the civil courts to silence the complainants and a criminal investigation was necessary.
“This is what they have done consistently over the last 10 years,” he said BBC Radio 4’s Today Program on Friday.
“They’ve spent £1 billion making sure these things are never examined in court… and you don’t get proper legal findings.
“I think what they are terrified of is that these findings would trigger a new criminal investigation.”
In civil courts, claimants could end up paying their opponents’ costs if the damages award is less than what they were offered to settle – even if they win.
Grant had accused the Sun of using private investigators to tap his phone and burglarize his house, and said he settled because he could not afford the possible costs of going to trial.
NGN had denied the allegations and said the settlement was reached “without admission of liability”.
The actor called in the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and the Metropolitan Police to investigate.
The CPS said the BBC’s criminal investigations were matters for police.
Grant also argued that a new investigation was necessary because people who were at the newspaper at the time private investigators who carried out “illegal activity” were being investigated were still in “positions of great power.”
NGN has apologized to Prince Harry for a serious intrusion into his privacy by the Sun which took place between 1996 and 2011.
The newspaper’s editor-in-chief for part of this period, Rebekah Brooks, is currently CEO of News UK. She was cleared of conspiring to hack voicemails during a 2014 trial.
“A lot of the people who work for these newspapers have now come to our side… to say it’s horrible,” the actor said.
“We were punished, we went to prison, we paid fines, we lost our jobs.
“But the people who ordered all this, they’re still there.”
Meanwhile, Grant said the government should launch the second part of the Leveson inquiry into press standards in light of the Duke of Sussex’s case.
The 2012 inquiry into press culture, practice and ethics was launched in the wake of the phone hacking scandal.
“This is something that has been repeatedly promised by Labor in opposition to victims of press abuse, over and over again.
“And now suddenly seem to have disappeared from their list of priorities now that they are in government.”
On Thursday, Lisa Nandy, secretary of state for culture, media and sport, ruled out opening a second stage of the investigation, saying it was no longer “fit for purpose”.
“A long investigation that was formulated in a different era before many of the cases we’ve seen since what’s happening online, that’s where a lot of people consume news these days,” Lisa Nandy told the BBC.
The BBC has contacted The Sun and News UK for a response.
