Actor Sadie Frost tells UK privacy trial there was a 'price on my head'

Sadie Frost's Testimony in Privacy Lawsuit

By Michael Holden

Background of the Case

LONDON, Jan 26 (Reuters) - British actor Sadie Frost said there had been a "price on my head" and she had become sick with humiliation as she gave evidence in a high-profile privacy lawsuit against the Daily Mail newspaper that she has brought with Prince Harry and five others.

Claims of Voicemail Hacking

Frost, 60, is suing the Mail's publisher Associated Newspapers for privacy violations between 2000 and 2010, including a reporter discovering her ectopic pregnancy in 2003 when she says she had not even told her mother and sisters.

Response from Associated Newspapers

Associated denies allegations of phone hacking and other unlawful acts, made by Frost and the other claimants, including Harry, singer Elton John, and actor Elizabeth Hurley.

STORIES ABOUT JUDE LAW

Frost was the third claimant to give evidence after Harry and Hurley, telling the High Court in London voicemails were hacked, and her landline and car bugged to find out stories mainly relating to her relationship with ex-husband and fellow actor Jude Law.

"There had been a price put on my head," said Frost, who starred in Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 film "Bram Stoker's Dracula" and has now turned to directing.

Frost became tearful and requested a break when asked about stories about how her daughter, then aged two, chewed on an ecstasy tablet found on the floor at a children's party in a club.

"It's just so humiliating ... it made me so ill," she said, explaining she had needed hospital treatment for post-natal depression. 

She rejected suggestions from Associated's lawyer that her family or friends could have been leaking stories, saying they would not have known the highly personal information, or when they did speak to the media it was only after such details had already been reported.

"This stuff had been in the press because it had been hacked from my voicemail," she said, adding both she and Law had suspected the other was leaking stories. 

ASSOCIATED SAYS LAWSUIT OUT OF DATE

The newspaper group, which also publishes the Mail on Sunday, says the information about Frost's pregnancy came from a freelance journalist with confidential sources close to Frost and her then estranged husband.

Associated also says Frost knew enough to bring a lawsuit before she sued in October 2022, outside a six-year time limit.

On Monday, lawyers released witness statements supporting the claimants from a series of well-known figures including actors Billie Piper and Patsy Kensit who say they believe stories written about them had been unlawfully obtained.

Their evidence is not being challenged as the publisher says their claims are both mistaken and irrelevant.

(Reporting by Michael Holden; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)