McCartney: I'm going to police over hacking claim (AP)

By RAPHAEL G. SATTER, Associated Press Raphael G. Satter, Associated Press – Thu Aug 4, 6:40 pm ET

LONDON – Former Beatle Paul McCartney said Thursday he would contact police over his ex-wife's claim that the couple had been spied upon by a British newspaper.

In comments to U.S. television journalists delivered via videolink from Cincinnati, Ohio, McCartney said that he would be in touch with law enforcement as soon as he was finished with his summer tour.

"I will be talking to them about that," McCartney told the Television Critics Association in Los Angeles.

"I don't think it's great. I do think it is a horrendous violation of privacy, and I do think it's been going on a long time, and I do think more people than we know knew about it. But I think I should just listen and hear what the facts are before I comment," he said.

McCartney is the latest celebrity to be dragged into Britain's phone hacking scandal, which centers on allegations that journalists routinely eavesdropped on private phone messages, bribed police officers for tips and illegally obtained confidential information for stories.

Until recently the scandal was largely been limited to the British arm of Rupert Murdoch's media empire, but an allegation made Wednesday by McCartney's former wife Heather Mills implicates the Trinity Mirror PLC group of newspapers, and CNN celebrity interviewer Piers Morgan, who once edited the group's flagship Daily Mirror tabloid.

Mills' allegation, made Wednesday in an interview with the BBC, was that a senior Mirror journalist admitted to her that his paper had been spying on her messages. While the broadcaster said that the unidentified man was not Piers Morgan, the former model's allegation echoes a claim Morgan himself made back in 2006 — a few months after the couple began divorce proceedings.

In an article published by the Daily Mail, Morgan said that he had been played a tape of a message McCartney had left on Mills' cell phone in the wake of one of their fights.

"It was heartbreaking," Morgan wrote. "He sounded lonely, miserable and desperate, and even sang 'We Can Work It Out' into the answerphone."

Questions over how Piers Morgan came to hear such a message have led several British lawmakers to call on him to return to the U.K. and explain himself.

Morgan has so far not offered comment on his article, although he did describe Mills' allegation as unsubstantiated and noted that the judge in the couple's divorce case had cast aspersions on her credibility.

He has repeatedly denied having ever ordered anyone to spy on others' voicemails, while his former newspaper group has insisted that it's journalists obey the law.

Mills' office on Thursday declined to elaborate on what she told the BBC, but said that the 43-year-old "looks forward to receiving Piers Morgan's answer as to how he knew the content of her private voicemail messages."

Several British parliamentarians have also said that Morgan has questions to answer — among them Conservative legislator Therese Coffey.

"I think it would help everybody, including himself and this investigation, if he was able to say more about why he wrote what he did in 2006," Coffey told the BBC Wednesday.

Morgan's publicist, Meghan McPartland, said that as far as she knew the CNN star — who is spending his summer working as a judge on "America's Got Talent" — was not returning to England to answer questions.

Morgan himself made light of the calls on his Twitter feed, saying he found it "so heartwarming that everyone in U.K.'s missing me so much they want me to come home."

In a separate development, the publisher of Britain's Daily Mail newspaper announced late Thursday that it was reviewing its editorial procedures. No reason for the review was given, but Morgan is one of many media veterans who've claimed that phone hacking and other shady practices were common across Britain's newspaper industry.

A similar review is already under way at the Mirror.

Associated Newspapers Ltd., which publishes the Daily Mail, the Mail on Sunday, and London's free Metro newspaper, said in a terse statement that Liz Hartley, the company's head of editorial legal services, would be among those working on the review.

Few other details were revealed, and Hartley did not return emails seeking further information.

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Frazier Moore and Noaki Schwartz in Los Angeles and David Stringer and Jill Lawless in London contributed to this report.

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Quaids claim corruption keeping them in Canada (AP)

By ANTHONY McCARTNEY, AP Entertainment Writer Anthony Mccartney, Ap Entertainment Writer – Sun Jul 24, 2:36 pm ET

LOS ANGELES – Randy Quaid says he would like to return to the United States one day, but he and his wife still fear they are being persecuted by California prosecutors and tabloid media.

Although U.S. officials recently refused to seek extradition of the actor and his wife from Canada to face felony vandalism charges in Santa Barbara, Calif., authorities in the coastal town say they'll still have the couple arrested if they return to the states.

The Quaids, who have missed several court appearances in the case, claim they are the victims of corrupt forces and are demanding an investigation.

"I feel like we've been driven out of the country and that the door's been slammed behind us," Quaid told The Associated Press in a phone interview from British Columbia on Friday. "And for what, these phony little trespassing, vandalism charges? Santa Barbara can sleep better tonight knowing the Quaids are out of their hair."

The couple's current trouble began in September 2010, when they were arrested for causing more than $5,000 damage at a hillside home they were renting.

It was the second bout of trouble for the couple in Santa Barbara. Months earlier the pair resolved a case in which they also missed several court appearances related to charges they defrauded an innkeeper; the case against the actor was dropped, but his wife was placed on probation after pleading no contest to a misdemeanor.

After the new arrest, they say they waited weeks to see if they would be charged. On Oct. 16, two days before they were charged — when a prosecutor says they had been notified to appear — the Quaids traveled to Vancouver, British Columbia.

Days later, they were arrested by Canadian police because of the California case. Quaid sought asylum, claiming he was being hunted by "Hollywood star-whackers" who had killed his friends David Carradine and Heath Ledger.

Several more times, a judge in Santa Barbara ordered the couple to appear, increasing the couple's bail each time they didn't show. By then Evi Quaid had learned her father was a Canadian citizen and she would be allowed to stay. Her husband, an Oscar-nominated actor who has appeared in films as varied as the "Vacation" franchise, "Independence Day" and "Brokeback Mountain, was allowed to stay, too.

The Quaids' behavior and statements have led many to question their sanity. Randy Quaid says he's not bothered by that, but wants to be recognized for his acting again.

"What I wish more than anything is that I could start getting press about my work as an actor," he said in the Friday interview. "That is what I do. I'm not a criminal."

The Quaids claim they had no idea they had to be in court Oct. 18. "We kept our eye on the media, waiting for something to happen," Randy Quaid said. "We never even contacted an attorney — we hadn't been charged."

They allege Santa Barbara Senior District Attorney Lee Carter falsely accused them of fleeing the country to evade prosecution and lying by saying they fled with active warrants.

Carter denied the allegation, and said the Quaids knew they had to be in court on the 18th, regardless of whether they'd been charged or not. "They bailed out and promised their bail bondsman that they would be in court on the 18th," he said.

Carter also denied the Quaids' accusations that there is a vendetta in Santa Barbara against them. "They're being treated like anyone else who commits a crime in our jurisdiction," he said. "They get prosecuted."

They also remain subject to arrest in the United States; fugitive warrants issued by a Santa Barbara judge remain active.

"They're fraudulent warrants as far as we're concerned," Evi Quaid said. "Randy Quaid is no more a fugitive from America than Uncle Sam is. I mean, he's the star of `Independence Day.'"

The Quaids argue they may still own the home where they were arrested, that there are legitimate questions about whether the actor's signature on documents transferring the house is a forgery.

Evi Quaid also says they hadn't caused any of the damage attributed to them by authorities, but rather had tried to clean up the house in the hopes that it might still be theirs. "All I did was garden," she said.

Despite their current woes, the Quaids say their problems go back much further; they suspect that personal information has been stolen and their phones have been hacked, possibly by reporters.

A 2008 story in the New York Post detailed complaints against the couple over their behavior on the set of a Broadway-bound play being rehearsed in Seattle. The show imploded, the story claimed, due to bizarre behavior by the actor, including lewd comments and hitting a castmate in the head. The end result was an $81,000 fine by the Actors' Equity Association and a lifetime ban from the group.

Drawing parallels with the phone hacking scandal that has engulfed British papers owned by Post parent News Corp., Randy Quaid claims he had discussed many details that were included in the Post piece with his attorney on a cell phone before boarding a flight in New York.

As the plane was about to leave, the Quaids said Post columnist Michael Riedel contacted him about the allegations, which the Quaids believe could have only been revealed if someone had hacked their phone.

The paper rejected the allegation in a statement released to the AP late Friday. "Michael Riedel categorically denies this claim," the paper said in a statement, stating that Quaid has provided no proof he was hacked.

The Quaids say they hope other stars will speak out and that inquiries by U.S. authorities will expose dirty tabloid tactics similar to those surfacing in the U.K. "At least they're outraged in England," Evi Quaid said. "I hope that it crosses to New York and people get angry."

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Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/celebritydocket

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Piers Morgan seeks apology over phone hacking claim (AFP)

LOS ANGELES (AFP) – Former British tabloid editor Piers Morgan has demanded an apology from a lawmaker who made claims about him admitting to phone hacking, at the London hearing which quizzed Rupert Murdoch.

In an angry on-air exchange, Morgan, who is now a celebrity interviewer for US television news network CNN, challenged Member of Parliament Louise Mensch to repeat her claim that he had "boasted" of phone hacking in a book about his tabloid editor days.

She declined to do so, saying she had been covered by parliamentary privilege -- which protects her from legal action for anything said inside parliament -- a protection which does not apply if she repeats the words elsewhere.

In the committee hearing which grilled Murdoch and his son James over the phone hacking scandal rocking the tycoon's media empire, Mensch said Morgan had boasted about using a phone hacking "little trick" to win a scoop of the year award.

"That is a former editor of the Daily Mirror being very open about his personal use of phone hacking," she said in the hearing.

But Morgan, a former editor of the Mirror and of Murdoch's now-shuttered News of the World, said he had never claimed to have used phone hacking himself in his 2005 book "The Insider: The Private Diaries of a Scandalous Decade."

"I'm amused by her cowardice in refusing to repeat that allegation now that shes not in parliament covered by privilege," Morgan said in the on-air exchange with Mensch, who was in London.

"She came out with an absolute blatant lie during those proceedings. At no stage in my book or indeed outside of my book have I ever boasted of using phone hacking for any stories."

And he added: "For the record, in my time at the Mirror and the News of the World I have never hacked a phone, told anybody to hack a phone or published any story based on the hacking of a phone."

In an increasingly tetchy exchange, during which Mensch said Morgan was a rich man and accused him of threatening her, the former newspaperman added: "I think you should apologize for being a liar."

He repeatedly bashed her for invoking parliamentary privilege and said Mensch should "show some balls" and repeat her claims outside the hearing.

Asking her to produce evidence to back her claim, he said: "If there is no evidence for that, are you going to publicly apologize to me, and to CNN right now for such an outrageous lie?"

"I feel no need whatsoever to apologize," said the lawmaker.

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Murdoch tabloid Sun denies Jude Law hacking claim (AP)

LONDON – Jude Law is taking legal action against The Sun newspaper, claiming the Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid hacked into voice mails for stories about his private life.

Murdoch's News International strongly denies the claim, accusing the actor of "a deeply cynical and deliberately mischievous attempt" to drag The Sun into the hacking scandal that has brought down its sister paper, the News of the World.

In a statement Friday, News International said Law's allegations "have no foundation whatsoever" and vowed to vigorously fight his claim.

Law's law firm, Atkins Thomson, declined to give details of the claim, which it said "will be considered by the court in due course."

Law is also suing the News of the World. That case is due to be heard next year.

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