'Core participants' receive public funds to take part in phone hack probe

More than 100 celebrities, TV stars and politicians will be able to apply for public funding to help them take part in the official phone-hacking inquiry.

Lord Leveson today disclosed that all those seeking to be "core participants" in his judicial probe could apply for their costs to be met by the state.

A source close to the inquiry admitted they were mindful of the disastrous cost of the Saville investigation into Bloody Sunday, which went on for more than a decade and cost hundreds of millions of pounds.

At the Royal Courts of Justice today, 14 people applied to be core participants including Labour politicians Chris Bryant, Tessa Jowell, Denis MacShane, John Prescott, former senior Met detective Brian Paddick, Kate and Gerry McCann and, Max Mosley.

Core participants will be allowed to have legal representation throughout the year-long inquiry which will enable them to cross-examine witnesses.

More than 100 other people, either victims of phone-hacking or people who feel they have been targets of "media misreporting", will decide within the next two days whether to apply, including actors Hugh Grant and Sienna Miller and celebrities Abi Titmuss and Ulrika Jonsson.

It is understood Lord Leveson will decide himself whether each applicant qualifies for state-funded support.

Potential applicants range from the wealthy, such as Jude Law, down to those with little money, such as Paul Gascoigne who attended a bankruptcy hearing earlier this year.