Grant, alongside King Charles’ son Prince Harry, is suing Rupert Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers (NGN) for widespread alleged unlawful information gathering that he says was committed on behalf of its tabloid, the “Sun”.
Judge Timothy Fancourt said in a written ruling today that Grant’s allegations of voicemail interception – widely known as “phone-hacking” – were outside a six-year time limit for legal action.
But the judge said the question of whether Grant’s allegations of “landline tapping, bugging, blagging, burglary and instructions to private investigators to do any of those things” were brought too late must be determined at a trial due to take place in January 2024.
An NGN spokesperson said the publisher was pleased that Grant’s phone-hacking claim against the “Sun” was thrown out by the court.
“NGN strongly denies the various historical allegations of unlawful information gathering contained in what remains of Mr Grant’s claim,” the added.
Grant said in a statement: “I am pleased that my case will be allowed to go to trial, which is what I have always wanted – because it is necessary that the truth comes out about the activities of the ‘Sun’.
“As my case makes clear, the allegations go far wider and deeper than voicemail interception.”
NGN had also asked the judge to throw out Harry’s lawsuit at a hearing last month, but a ruling in his case is not expected until after a further hearing in July, at which Harry will ask for permission to rely on an alleged “secret agreement” between Buckingham Palace and senior figures at NGN.
Press reform
Grant – famous for film comedies such as “Love Actually” and “Notting Hill” – has become a prominent campaigner on press reform since the phone-hacking scandal emerged.
He previously brought a lawsuit against NGN in relation to the now-defunct “News of the World” tabloid, which was settled in 2012.
His latest lawsuit alleged “Sun” reporters used private investigators to tap his landline phone, place listening and tracking devices on his house and car, burgle his property, and obtain his private information by deception.
NGN denies the allegations and its lawyers argued at April’s hearing that it was “unreal” for Grant to have not known enough to bring a lawsuit in relation to the “Sun” earlier than he did.
Today’s ruling comes amid an ongoing trial concerning allegations of unlawful information gathering brought by Harry and others against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), publisher of the “Daily Mirror”, “Sunday Mirror” and “Sunday People”.
MGN strongly denies the allegations.
Harry is due to give evidence in person in early June, the first British royal to do so since the 19th century.