Liz Hurley Tells High Court Her Phone Was 'Bugged' — A Privacy Fear Anyone Can Relate To

Elizabeth Hurley says Associated Newspapers Ltd (ANL), the Daily Mail's publisher, tapped her phones and windows, and listened to her live conversations over the phone in a 'brutal invasion of privacy.'

In a report by the Guardian, Liz Hurley was left devastated with her home being bugged, and had said in her evidence, 'The Mail's unlawful acts against me involve landline tapping my phones and recording my live telephone conversations, placing surreptitious mics on my home windows, stealing my medical information when I was pregnant with Damian and other monstrous, staggering things.'

She went on to say that her discovery that her phone conversations had been recorded was what 'devastated' her. 'I had not come across this brutal invasion of privacy in either of my two battles with the other newspapers. I felt crushed. It represented the ultimate violation of privacy.'

Liz Hurley also pointed out the distinction between listening to voicemail recordings versus live phone calls, 'There's a vast difference - both indefensible - between someone intercepting a voicemail and someone listening in on every single phone call in your home and concealing a tape recorder and attaching it to your home BT wire to record your live telephone conversations. I was seething when I discovered The Mail did this to me.'

Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) is facing lawsuits from six other high-profile names, including the Duke of Sussex, Baroness Doreen Lawrence, Sadie Frost, Sir Simon Hughes (former Liberal Democrat MP), and Sir Elton John and his husband David Furnish, for Unlawful Information Gathering (UIG) accusations that have occurred over the past 20 years. The publisher denies the allegations.

Emotional Hurley on Trial

Thursday's trial proved eventful for the emotional actress, who handed over her written evidence against Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) in tears, telling the court that ANL's breach of privacy has reached a 'whole different mortifying and enraging scale,' according to an exclusive report by BBC.

In a statement by the actress, between 2002 and 2011, fifteen articles, five of which were about her son, Damian and his deceased father, film producer Steve Bing, ANL 'wilfully exploited my stolen information using its arsenal of illegal means.' She also revealed allegations that the Mail illegally obtained her medical information during her pregnancy with her son, referring to a publication from ANL just a day after his birth in 2002 that detailed her stay in the hospital.

Hurley said on Thursday, 'I felt really mortified that my son would be able to read all this stuff one day, and I feel really bad that that day is today when all this stuff is being regurgitated again. Yet again, everyone's privacy is being invaded in this terrible way, and I feel very helpless about that.'

In her statement, Hurley pointed out ten articles from journalists who 'were commissioning other private investigators to do similar unlawful things,' and some of which were shown to her in court, it made her emotional.

The British actress and model told her lawyer that discussing the events was 'very painful,' saying, 'With respect, I don't want to be here.' Hurley's trial will continue for nine more weeks.