Hugh Grant bugs former News of the World hack
Hugh Grant has turned the tables on phone-hackers by secretly taping a conversation with a former News of the World journalist.
The actor wore a wire while he chatted to Paul McMullan, an ex-NoTW deputy features editor, about the tabloid's phone-hacking methods.
Grant first encountered McMullan, now a pub landlord, when his car broke down in Kent. At first McMullan started taking pictures of the star (which later appeared in the Daily Mail) but then offered him a lift in his van.
In reward for his good deed Grant said he would later call into McMullan's pub for a pint. It was there that Grant recorded McMullan, who has previously spoken on the record about phone hacking, for a piece for the New Statesman.
Grant writes: "I wanted to hear more about phone-hacking and the whole business of tabloid journalism. It occurred to me just to interview him straight, as he has, after all, been a whistleblower. But then I thought I might possibly get more, and it might be more fun, if I secretly taped him, The bugger bugged, as it were."
In the interview McMullan says: "It started off as fun - you know, it wasn't against the law, so why wouldn't you? And it was only because the MPs who were fiddling their expenses and generally being corrupt kept getting caught so much they changed the law in 2001 to make it illegal to buy and sell a scanner.
"So all we were left with was finding a blag to get your mobile [records] out of someone at Vodafone."
The full interview will be published in this week's edition of the New Statesman, guest edited by Grant's former partner Jemima Khan.