Celebrity couple to sue others after NOTW victory

CELEBRITY couple Leslie Ash and Lee Chapman have settled their phone hacking claim against the News of the World — and now plan to take action against other newspapers.

The actress and the former footballer sued the now-closed Sunday tabloid over fears that it illegally listened to their voicemails while Ash was recovering from a superbug in hospital in 2004.

The couple said they were “pleased” that the claims they and their sons brought against the paper’s publishers, News Group Newspapers, and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire had been settled.

But they added that they believe phone hacking also went on at other media organisations and intend to bring claims against other papers.

Ash and Chapman said in a statement: “We are pleased to say that our and our sons’ claims against News Group Newspapers (NGN) Limited and Mr Mulcaire have been resolved.

“NGN has agreed to pay our family an appropriate sum by way of compensation and costs and it has apologised for the harm and distress it has caused us.

“However, we remain concerned that the practices complained of against NGN are likely to have been prevalent within a number of other media publishers, and we will be instructing our lawyer, Charlotte Harris of Mishcon De Reya, to take action against other newspapers in due course.”

The couple revealed in January that police investigating phone hacking at the News of the World had found documents listing their names, addresses and phone numbers as well as the mobile details of their children.

They said they feared highly personal voicemails left by their sons were intercepted while former Men Behaving Badly star, Ash, was recovering at home after contracting the MSSA infection, a strain of MRSA, in hospital in 2004.

News International has declined to comment.

The settlement came hours after police investigating the phone-hacking scandal at Rupert Murdoch’s defunct News of the World arrested a senior Hollywood reporter at the tabloid, James Desborough.

Police said they arrested a 38-year-old man on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications after arriving at a south London police station yesterday morning by appointment.

Desborough joined the News of the World in 2005 as a showbusiness and news reporter and was promoted to become US editor, based in Los Angeles, in 2009. He worked for the paper up until it closed last month.

The Guardian newspaper’s website said the allegations were believed to relate to events before Desborough was sent to the US.