Mail warned over 'mendacious smears' attack on Grant

THE Daily Mail's furious response to the testimony of Hugh Grant at the Leveson Inquiry yesterday has caused the fur to fly at the hearing, where lawyers have been debating whether or not the paper overstepped the mark.
 
On the first day of evidence at the inquiry, actor Grant said he believed his phone had been hacked by the Mail on Sunday in 2007. It was the first allegation of hacking made against a non Murdoch-owned paper and it elicited an immediate and angry denial from the paper's owners, Associated Newspapers.
 
"Mr Grant's allegations are mendacious smears driven by his hatred of the media," Associated said in a statement carried by the Daily Mail today.
 
The trouble is, the reaction appears to fly in the face of instructions from Lord Justice Leveson last week before the inquiry began, when he explicitly warned newspapers not to victimise inquiry witnesses who speak out against press intrusion.
 
When the matter was raised at the inquiry today Leveson admitted: "There is some thought to be given as to how we're going to cope."
 
Solicitor David Sherbourne alerted Leveson to the Mail's riposte to Grant's evidence and said that the paper had made out that he was "deliberately lying". It went beyond comment, he said. "It was not a denial, but a personal attack on Mr Grant.”
 
Jonathan Caplan QC, representing Associated Newspapers, said the allegations against the paper were "extremely serious" and "based on the flimsiest of evidence".
 
Leveson agreed that there should be a right of reply, but appeared to fire what The Guardian called "a broadside" against Associated. "I would be unhappy if it was felt the best form of defence was always attack," he warned. ·