Phone hacking: Rhys Ifans launches damages claim

ACTOR Rhys Ifans and television presenter Cilla Black have launched phone-hacking damages claims, it has emerged.

Rhys Ifans is among those who launched damages claims today. Picture: Getty

News of their legal actions came during the 16th case

management conference at the High Court in London relating to claims against News Group Newspapers.

Two judges heard that since the last hearing, in March, six new claims had been issued and six others had settled.

Details of the settled cases have yet to be confirmed. Anthony Hutton, a former winner on the TV reality contest Big Brother is among the six launching new claims, along with Cilla Black’s son Robert Willis.

During the hearing, Dinah Rose QC, for NGN, told Mr Justice Vos and Mr Justice Mann that more than 95 per cent of cases had been settled.

She said the group had acted in accordance with its “expressed intention” to pay fair and generous compensation to anyone whose phone had been hacked, “and that is why the overwhelming majority of the claims have been settled”.

But she added that this was not NGN’s position in relation to “so-called Elveden claims”.

The court heard from Hugh Tomlinson QC, who represents the claimant group in the litigation, over “what have been called Operation Elveden claims”.

He explained these were “claims which involve an allegation of corrupt payment by journalists to public officials”.

Mr Tomlinson said “there is only one issued claim in this category”, adding “there are a number of claims in the pipeline”, in his understanding,

between five and ten.