BRITISH ACTOR HUGH Grant has settled his phone-hacking damages claim against Mirror Group Newspapers.

Grant was at the High Court today when the details of the settlement were provided at a hearing.

Grant said the newspaper group had engaged in “industrial scale” phone hacking.

“This newspaper group has misled the public and its shareholders for many years; and it has let down its readers and its hard-working journalists,” Grant said outside the court.

Settlement details weren’t made public. British media said the payment involved a six-figure sum which the actor donated to the anti-hacking activist group Hacked Off.

Grant’s claim involved the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and Sunday People newspapers. He has for a number of years spoken out against intrusive and sometimes illegal British press activities.

MGN said it “deeply regretted” the acts and described them as “morally wrong”, according to the BBC.

In a statement outside the court, Grant said that Mirror Group Newspapers had admitted in a statement in Open Court that “a number of its senior employees, including executives, editors and journalists, condoned, encouraged or actively turned a blind eye to the widespread culture of unlawful information”.

This included “gathering activities at all three of its newspapers for many years and actively sought to conceal its wrongdoing from its many victims of intrusion”.

He added:

Its repeated and prolonged intrusions into innocent people’s lives over, in some instances, a decade, could have been prevented or interrupted.

- with reporting from Gráinne Ní Aodha.

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