The Prague Post - Actor Liz Hurley in tears as accuses UK tabloid of 'monstrous' conduct

Hurley, 60, the former partner of Hollywood star Hugh Grant, is suing Associated Newspapers Ltd (ANL), the publisher of the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday, over alleged privacy breaches along with Prince Harry and five other high-profile figures.

Harry, who gave his own emotional testimony Wednesday, was back in court to "show solidarity with the other claimants", his spokesman told UK media.

Hurley repeatedly became tearful and struggled to speak as she defended her claim -- which relates to 15 articles from 2002 to 2011 -- during questioning by ANL's lawyer.

"There were microphones on the windowsill of my dining room... I was being listened to," Hurley told the court, calling the press intrusion "deeply hurtful".

In a written statement, she claimed "The Mail's Unlawful Acts against me involve landline tapping my phones and recording my live telephone conversations, placing surreptitious mics on my home windows."

She also accused the tabloid of "stealing my medical information when I was pregnant" with her son Damian and "other monstrous, staggering things".

Hurley alleges ANL journalists commissioned and paid various private investigators to conduct the unlawful information-gathering.

- 'Mortifying' -

In her statement, she claimed one investigator biked tapes of the illegally obtained phone recordings "to the defendant's newspaper for £2,000 plus, in cash, hidden in an envelope".

"It was disgusting, mortifying, humiliating," she stated.

The actor said she was "not looking for sympathy" but "only for accountability".

ANL has consistently denied all the claims against it -- which relate to more than 50 articles in a period from at least 1993 to 2018 -- calling them "lurid" and "preposterous".

Like Harry, Hurley has previously successfully sued other British tabloids for privacy breaches, receiving in 2017 "substantial" damages and an apology from Mirror Group Newspapers for phone-hacking.

She also settled a claim against Rupert Murdoch's UK tabloid publisher NGN in 2019.

The seven claimants suing ANL also include pop icon Elton John and his husband David Furnish, actor Sadie Frost, and two other public figures.

Their legal team opened the trial, which is expected to last nine weeks, on Monday by vowing to show "there was clear and systematic use of unlawful gathering of information" at ANL.

But ANL's lead lawyer has countered that evidence will prove it sourced its stories legitimately and that claims around the use of private investigators were "clutching at straws in the wind".

S.Janousek--TPP