4 days ago
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The actor Sadie Frost has said she had “a price put on my head” by the publisher of the Daily Mail, as she accused it of repeatedly using information secured from her private calls and sensitive personal records.
Appearing in the high court, Frost said she was horrified by an email suggesting a Mail on Sunday journalist had confirmed to a convicted phone hacker that he was interested in information about her.
Frost is one of seven people alleging that Associated Newspapers Ltd (ANL) used unlawful information gathering to secure stories about them. Prince Harry has already given evidence, as has the actor Elizabeth Hurley.
The other claimants are Doreen Lawrence, the mother of Stephen Lawrence, who was killed in a racist murder, Sir Elton John and his husband, David Furnish, and the former Liberal Democrat MP Simon Hughes.
Frost immediately became distressed as she recounted the impact of the private stories about her. She is complaining about 11 stories that appeared from 2000 until at least 2010, as well as two incidents of unlawful information gathering that did not result in articles. One related to an ectopic pregnancy in 2003.
She said she believed there was no way the information in the articles could have been sourced legitimately. She said some were “word for word” from voicemails, which she had worded very carefully.
“There had been a price put on my head,” she said. “The Daily Mail had said they were interested in Sadie Frost.”
The claimant’s legal team are pointing to an April 2006 email from the late convicted phone hacker, Greg Miskiw, in which Miskiw recounts a conversation between Frost and her former nanny. He reports a dispute with direct quotes, as well as referring to a child psychologist.
The claimants’ legal team say the “verbatim quotations are from the fruits of voicemail interception”. Miskiw also asks a Mail on Sunday journalist: “Are you interested in Sadie Frost? I might have a story about her.” The journalist responds: “Of course we are interested in Sadie.”
In a written witness statement submitted to the court, Frost said: “I was horrified that anybody would do this to my son and because of me. I could not believe how cold blooded they were to be ‘interested’ in my private dispute and my son’s medical information for sale in a newspaper.
“It was so cruel and horrible; I instructed lawyers. I wanted to find out what else and what exactly had happened.”
ANL’s legal team has described the allegations against the publisher as “lurid” and “preposterous”. It has said there is little evidence that the stories about the claimants were obtained unlawfully, stating that the journalists involved secured the information by legal means and sources.
Antony White KC, the lead barrister for ANL, presented Frost with articles that quoted her sister, mother and father, suggesting they had given information to the media. He said this in turn had encouraged members of her social circle to give the press information about her.
However, Frost said her mother would not have given truly private information and that she was often responding to information already released by the press. She said it was “very taboo to speak to the press” among her friends, and that someone would be “cut out of the group” for doing so.
Asked about the circumstances around a story about her young daughter swallowing an ecstasy pill she found on the floor at a private club, Frost said she had not been talking to many people about it.
“I wasn’t going out having tea and cake,” she said. “I was holed up at home, distressed, trying to be a good mum.”
The trial continues.
