Angelina Jolie may testify in News Corp phone hacking case

Angelina Jolie may be called to give evidence in a phone hacking legal action in the United States, according to a report in the Hollywood Reporter.

The possibility emerged in the latest hearing in a case launched inCalifornia against News Corporation by Eunice Huthart, who has worked as Jolie’s stunt double.

She filed her lawsuit in June this year, and News Corp responded in September by arguing that the case should be transferred to Britain, where all the other hacking claims have been dealt with.

Papers filed by Rupert Murdoch‘s media company said: “The compensation scheme has been extraordinarily successful at delivering satisfaction to applicants: it has received 611 inquiries from individuals alleging they were victims of voicemail interception, of whom 426 applied to join the scheme, resulting in 359 being invited to join the scheme, and 272 settling their claims thus far.

“Not a single applicant to date has seen fit to take his or her case to a hearing.”

But Huthart’s lawyers were unimpressed with that argument, saying: “No claimant has proceeded to a hearing, not because applicants are satisfied with the compensation scheme, but because [News International] controls the scheme and decides whom to accept into it.

“This is not a sign of success… The system is unfair to claimants and effectively prevents claimants from having their day in court and from getting to the bottom of defendants’ wrongdoing towards them.”

Huthart believes it makes sense to try the case in California. Her lawyers argue that the case presents serious questions about fundamental rights of privacy in the United States.

She claims that the News of the World’s interest in her voicemails “derived entirely from her personal and professional relationships to celebrities”, such as Jolie and her husband Brad Pitt.

Huthart was the double for Jolie in the film Mr and Mrs Smith. She became godmother to Jolie’s first biological child.

Source: Hollywood Reporter