Paul O’Grady has settled his phone hacking claim for “substantial” damages, it was announced at a High Court hearing in London today.
A judge heard that News Group Newspapers, publisher of the now defunct News Of The World, accepted that the star’s “voicemail messages were intercepted and that there has been a misuse of his private information”.
The star’s lawyer Nicola McCann told Mr Justice Mann: “The full extent of such interception will never be known.”
O’Grady, best known for his drag queen alter ego Lily Savage and hosting a chat show, was contacted by police in 2011 and was “extremely angry” to discover evidence of misconduct. He was “particularly distressed as in 2002 and 2005 private medical information, of which he did not know the provenance at the time, ended up in an NoW article”.
The lawyer added: “Mr O’Grady recalls that, on one occasion, messages left for him from close friends and family members whilst he was in hospital were deleted and he had never previously been able to understand why.”
Anthony Hudson, QC for the company, said: “NGN offers its sincere apologies to Mr O’Grady. It accepts such activity should never have taken place and has undertaken to the court this won’t happen again.”
