Elizabeth Hurley testified in London’s High Court on Thursday that the publisher behind the Daily Mail unlawfully invaded her privacy, alleging actions that included tapping her phones, recording live telephone conversations and placing microphones outside her windows. She said the reported conduct also included the theft of her medical information when she was pregnant with Damian, among other acts she described as “monstrous.”
“The best way I can describe it is like there is someone peeping into your life and into your home,” Hurley said during testimony. “It ‘makes me feel as if my private life had been violated by violent intruders — that there had been sinister thieves in my home all along and that I had been living with them completely unaware.’”
Hurley, the second witness to testify, spoke as the case—brought by co-claimants including Prince Harry and Elton John—drew attention in the celebrity-heavy courtroom. Four other people are also part of the lawsuit, and the allegations center on claims that Associated Newspapers Ltd. hired private investigators to unlawfully snoop on the claimants over two decades.
Hurley said she hoped her son, who sat in the courtroom as a model and actor, would never have to see the materials at the center of the dispute. She told the court that she felt “really mortified” that her son would be able to read the articles, and she said she felt helpless when some of those articles were shown to her during the proceedings.
In describing what she said was taken from her, Hurley told the court: “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, stealing my medical information when I was pregnant with Damian, and other monstrous, staggering things,” according to the testimony reported by The Associated Press.
Prince Harry attended to show support for Hurley’s testimony, the day after he had choked up in the witness box as he spoke about the emotional toll of his own battle against the British media on him and his family.
The publisher denied the claims. It said the allegations are “preposterous,” adding that the articles were reported using legitimate sources. The defense is expected to name people employed by the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday as part of its response during the nine-week trial in London.
Hurley said she became aware of alleged wrongdoing involving the Mail only after being told in 2020 that Gavin Burrows, a former private investigator, purportedly said he had stolen her information at the behest of the newspapers. Burrows later disavowed that sworn statement and said he never worked for the Mail.
Hurley also testified that she had alleged 15 articles about her between 2002 and 2011 relied on unlawful information-gathering. She said several of those articles related to the 2002 birth of Damian and the paternity dispute with Steve Bing.
This article is algorithmically generated by Main Street Independent’s News Article Generator framework (Appendix F of the MSI methodology). Human review: not_triggered.