'I'm no paragon of virtue'

Steve Coogan has given his evidence in the inquiry into media standards – saying reporters rifled through his rubbish bins and manipulated women into giving ‘kiss-and-tell’ stories about him.

In his opening statement to the Levenson inquiry, the unlikely ethical crusader, said: ‘I have never wanted to be famous, as such. Fame is a by-product. I like to keep myself private."

‘I don’t want to set myself up as a paragon of virtue or a model of morality. I simply do what I do.

‘I learned years ago that aspects of my personal life - and for that matter my professional work - do not meet the approval of some tabloid editors and proprietors. But I do not believe that gives them the right to hack my voicemail, intrude into my privacy or the privacy of people who know me, or print damaging lies.

‘I am an actor, comedian and a writer. I never entered into a Faustian pact with the press. I did not become successful in my work through embracing or engaging in celebrity culture. I never signed away my privacy in exchange for success.’

Later in his testimony, Coogan said the tabloid press indulged in ‘tawdry muck-raking’ – while individual journalists acted like the mafia in that turning over people’s private lives was ‘just business’ and nothing personal.

He told how tabloid reported Kate Thornton, of the Daily Mirror, doorstepped his pregnant girlfriend, while another called an elderly relative claiming to be a council worker – but she rumbled that he was from the ‘gutter press’.

Coogan said his mobile phone password and account number were found in the notes of private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator employed by the News Of The World and that he once confronted a paparazzi took photos with a telephoto lens of him and children in Brighton, where he lives.

He said tabloids approached women he had slept with who were ‘vulnerable’ and told them they had stories that would make then look ‘tawdry and awful and sluttish’ – unless they gave their side of the story. ‘It's a ruse,’ he said. ‘They can't publish story unless that person speaks to them, it's a bluff.’

The Alan Partridge star was a regular feature of the tabloids in the Nineties with stories about his tangled love live, trysts with lap-dancers and cocaine-taking.

Lord Justice Leveson is hearing from alleged victims of media intrusion at the Royal Courts of Justice in London. Gerry and Kate McCann will be giving evidence tomorrow.

Published: 22 Nov 2011