Tabloids operate like Mafia, says comedian Coogan

CELEBRITIES fear a backlash from the British tabloid press if they speak out at an inquiry into media standards, comedian and actor Steve Coogan said, adding that newspapers were like the Mafia in the way they operated.

A lawyer for film star Hugh Grant earlier warned that intimidating newspaper tactics risked derailing the inquiry, ordered by Prime Minister David Cameron, after disclosures that reporters at the now defunct News of the World had hacked thousands of phones.

Coogan, best known in Britain for his portrayal of gauche TV presenter Alan Partridge, said he lost count of the number of tabloid “kiss and tell” stories about him.

He denied a Daily Mail story from 2007 which alleged he took drugs with actor Owen Wilson. He said at the time of the alleged episode he had not been in the same continent as the actor for nine months.

Coogan said he felt it was necessary to speak out about the media: “Many other celebrities, for want of a better word, have told me that they agree with me and they would like to come [to the inquiry] but they don’t have the stomach for it and they fear what will happen.”

He detailed tabloid tactics such as rooting through his rubbish bins and harassing friends and relatives for stories about him: “It’s like the Mafia, it’s just business.”

Coogan described being tipped off about a “sting” when former News of the World editor Andy Coulson tried to get him to talk about an affair.

“There was a girl in Andy Coulson’s office who was going to speak to me on the phone — the phone call would be recorded — and she would try to entice me to talk about intimate details of her and my life.

“I was told by (reporter) Rav Singh that Andy Coulson would be listening to the call and that I would have to be very... if you like... ‘obfuscate’ when I had that phone call.”

Lawyer David Sherborne, who is representing several victims hacking by Britain’s scoop-hungry newspapers, hit out at the treatment of Hugh Grant after the actor told the inquiry he believed he was the victim of phone hacking.

Grant told the inquiry on Monday that he believed the mid-market Mail on Sunday newspaper had hacked into his phone messages.

The paper denied Grant’s allegations, issuing a statement calling them “mendacious smears driven by his hatred of the media”.

Sherborne said the comment and coverage yesterday in the Daily Mail, the sister paper, went beyond fair comment.

“If those who have been brave enough to come and give evidence to this inquiry about what they have suffered at the hands of the press, hear that kind of plea in mitigation... we may well face people who are unwilling to be that brave any longer.”

Earlier on Monday a former Premiership footballer who tried to stop a tabloid paper publishing details of his adultery suggested journalists may have hacked his phone.

Ex-Blackburn Rovers captain Garry Flitcroft took out an injunction in April 2001 to prevent the People newspaper running a “kiss and tell” story about a brief affair.

This was overturned by the Court of Appeal in early 2002, leading to public humiliation for the married father when his name was finally disclosed.

Flitcroft told the inquiry he “strongly suspected” that reporters hacked his phone to discover details of a second woman with whom he had an affair.

The effect of the revelations may also have contributed to his own father’s suicide in 2008, he said.