Hugh Grant: accused by Dacre of 'hijacking' inquiry with his phone hacking claim
Credit: Stefan Rousseau/PAAssociated Newspapers editor-in-chief Paul Dacre is to be called back to answer more questions from the Leveson inquiry later this week, after he accused the actor Hugh Grant of attempting to "hijack" the inquiry.
The publisher put out a statement accusing Grant of "mendacious smears" when the actor appeared before the inquiry in November and claimed his phone may have been hacked by the Mail on Sunday in 2007.
Dacre yesterday accused Grant of "hijacking this inquiry in a highly calculated attempt to wound my company".
He said: "I will withdraw that statement if Mr Grant withdraws his that the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday were involved in phone hacking."
Lord Justice Leveson said this morning that he wanted Dacre to return by Thursday (9 February), for less than half an hour, to answer more questions about the Hugh Grant incident.
Dacre will be asked about a Mail on Sunday story in February 2007 about the actor's relationship with his then-girlfriend Jemima Khan, which referred to phone calls with "a plummy-voiced executive" from a film company.
It was this story, mentioned by Grant in his evidence to the inquiry, that prompted Associated to issue its statement in November denying phone hacking.
Leveson said: "We will find some short period of time for this to be the subject of further evidence and we shall do that this week.
"I know that Mr Dacre is busy. We have worked very hard to fit ourselves around his commitments. I cannot believe in the next three days that he cannot find a few minutes."
The Media Standards Trust's "Hacked Off" campaign – of which Grant is a supporter – said in a statement last night: "The Hacked Off campaign and the Media Standards Trust categorically refute Paul Dacre's baseless accusations that we have 'attempted to hijack' the Leveson inquiry by somehow putting pressure on Hugh Grant, a supporter of the Hacked Off campaign, to 'wound' Associated Newspapers at the time Mr Grant gave oral evidence to the inquiry."
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