It’s sad that Hugh Grant v Rupert Murdoch won’t go to court, but good can come of it | Jane Martinson

The mogul has taken these hacking allegations out of the public arena. Use this moment to craft reforms that can be trusted

True crime dramas, in which nobody wins but the lawyers, are not the kind of films that made Hugh Grant famous. His starring role in the long-running legal action against the Sun newspaper for phone hacking instead proves that real life is far more flawed and frustrating than film.

After more than a decade of leading a campaign against what he called the worst excesses of the oligarch-owned press", Grant settled with Rupert Murdoch when offered such an enormous" sum of money that to proceed would have seen him liable for even bigger costs.