Hugh Grant has called for the police to open a new criminal investigation into the owners of The Sun following its recent admission of "unlawful activity".
Earlier this week, lawyers for News Group Newspapers (NGN) agreed to pay substantial damages to Prince Harry to end their long-running legal case over claims of unlawful information gathering.
As part of the historic settlement, representatives issued an apology for the "serious intrusion" into his private life by The Sun between 1996 and 2011, and admitted for the first time that "incidents of unlawful activity" were carried out by their private investigators.
Grant, who settled his own privacy case with NGN last year, has now called for renewed police action, insisting the task of holding NGN to account is not done "by any means".
During an appearance on BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Friday, the Notting Hill actor insisted civil cases were "not the right instrument" to discover "the real truth" about the newspaper's activities because NGN allegedly "gamed" the courts to silence complainants.
"That's what they've done consistently over the last 10 years," he said. "They've spent £1 billion to make sure these things are never looked at in court... and you don't get proper judicial findings. I think what they're terrified of is that those findings would trigger a new criminal inquiry."
The 64-year-old had accused The Sun of using private investigators to tap his phone and burgle his house. He ultimately settled the case because he could not face the potential costs of a trial. NGN denied the allegations and insisted the settlement was not an admission of liability.
Grant also called for the government to launch a second stage of the Leveson Inquiry into press standards following the Duke of Sussex's case. However, Lisa Nandy, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, ruled out that possibility on Thursday, insisting it was no longer "fit for purpose".
A spokesperson for London's Metropolitan Police told BBC News on Friday that there were no active criminal investigations.
