From digging out stories he admits destroyed lives to being secretly taped by Hugh Grant in his Dover pub, Paul McMullan has never shied away from notoriety.
The ex-News of the World reporter spoke with characteristic defiance about his past ahead of a new ITV drama dramatising the scandal that brought down Britain’s biggest-selling Sunday newspaper…
Former News of the World reporter Paul McMullan outside what was The Castle pub in Dover, which he now runs as a backpacking hostel
It was the mid-2000s when the first revelations of phone hacking began to shake Fleet Street, exposing how News of the World reporters routinely intercepted the private messages of the Royal Family.
It would later emerge the voicemails of politicians, celebrities and even murdered schoolgirl Millie Dowler had also been listened to, sparking a scandal that would eventually close the newspaper in 2011.
Tonight, a new star-studded ITV drama – The Hack – will retell the story, shining a spotlight on a dark period of tabloid intrusion many argue was dressed up as “investigative journalism”.
Watching it with more than a passing interest will be ex-News of the World reporter Paul McMullan from his home on the Kent coast.
Known by colleagues as “Mucky”, he went on to become deputy features editor, working directly under Rebekah Brooks, who features heavily in the drama and is now chief executive of News UK.
McMullan, 55, now runs The First and Last and The Castle in Dover – both former pubs turned into backpacking hostels. But for seven years, he was at the heart of a newsroom that prided itself on exposing secrets, whatever the method.
While he denies ever tapping into phones himself and was never prosecuted, he admits he used hacked material to write stories that, at the paper’s peak, helped it sell five million copies a week.
“In today’s money [Rupert] Murdoch chucked £10 million a year into our investigations department,” he says.
Andy Coulson, pictured when he was appointed editor of the News of the World in 2003, later moved to Preston, near Canterbury, where he was living at the time he was jailed. Picture: News of the World/Paul Ashton
“Not only were we well paid, we had access to fast cars to chase people, surveillance vans – all the tools to hack and uncover the grubby truth that most celebrities and politicians didn’t want coming out.
“And I’m proud of all the things I did. I never hurt anybody who didn’t deserve it.”
Almost a quarter of a century on, he remains unrepentant about the methods used to unearth exclusives he believes were “helping keep the nation safe”.
“It kept our politicians in check. People were terrified of the News of the World surveillance van sitting outside their house,” he says.
“We were the real-life James Bond, 007. We always pretended to be someone we weren’t. We tricked and cheated and lied – did everything to expose villainy. I miss the days of being an undercover investigative journalist.
“The fact that the newspaper was forced to close in the wake of the phone hacking revelations in July 2011 means bad people can now do things with impunity.”
McMullan says he will tune in to watch The Hack but fears it will give the impression that the journalism of his time was only destructive.
“For most people, it’ll just be entertainment, for me it’s reliving a career,” he says.
David Tennant as Nick Davies in new ITV drama The Hack. Picture: ITV/Stan
“If they show it honestly, people will see it wasn’t one or two bad apples – the whole newsroom lived off those tricks. You either did it, or you were out of a job.
“Britain was better off and protected by journalists who are the attack dogs of the press and would rip into politicians and their hypocrisy.”
The scandal has a further Kent connection through Andy Coulson, the editor of the News of the World during the hacking years, who was jailed in 2014 for conspiracy to intercept voicemails.
He was living in Preston, near Canterbury, when he was put behind bars, but sold his home eight years after his release for almost £1.4 million. He now runs a crisis management firm in London and chose not to comment on the new drama.
The seven-part series stars David Tennant – himself a victim of phone hacking – as Guardian journalist Nick Davies, whose reporting helped expose widespread hacking and alleged police corruption.
It has been made by the team behind Mr Bates vs the Post Office, who hope it will have a similar impact and revive public and political interest in the scandal.
Some believe it could even spark calls for “Leveson Part Two” – the shelved second stage of the judicial inquiry that was meant to examine the relationship between press, police and politicians.
At the original Leveson hearings in 2011, McMullan became one of the most infamous witnesses, telling Lord Justice Leveson that phone hacking was routine and bribing police officers was “part of the job”.
Privacy is the space bad people need to do bad things in…
He memorably declared: “Privacy is the space bad people need to do bad things in.”
He insists most celebrities thrived on the publicity the paper gave them, but admits there were casualties.
Among them was actress Jennifer Elliott, daughter of actor Denholm Elliott, who took her own life years after McMullan reported on her drug addiction and falsely suggested she had turned to prostitution.
He has admitted he went “too far on that one”, in a rare show of contrition.
But what was seen as the final nail in the coffin for the News of the World was the revelation that journalists had hacked the phone of Milly Dowler, giving her family false hope she was still alive.
Even with that case, McMullan argues those responsible only wanted to help the efforts to find the missing schoolgirl, who was later found murdered in woodland.
But he concedes the newspaper was sometimes “brutal” with its coverage and used a wide range of illegal or unethical activities to get stories.
Besides phone hacking, journalists bribed police officers, stole documents and went through celebrities’ rubbish bins.
Actor Hugh Grant ends his confrontation with Paul McMullan with a handshake at The Castle pub in Dover
Now in his third marriage and a father of six, McMullan says he misses the lifestyle that once paid him handsomely, having travelled the world following Royals, including Princess Diana, and superstars like Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt.
Now he spends his time at the First and Last and The Castle, which he turned into hostels after Covid hit and the pubs became unviable.
It was at the latter that he was famously secretly taped by actor Hugh Grant, who recorded him admitting phone hacking was a tactic used by journalists.
Grant later helped establish the Hacked Off campaign group to highlight the phone hacking scandal and demand justice for victims.
A police investigation would later lead to jail sentences for five journalists convicted of conspiracy to unlawfully intercept communications.
McMullan is now republishing his memoir, previously called Privacy is for Paedoes, which is currently being edited and renamed Muck, revealing the stories behind many of his exclusives.
“It’s been fact checked and lawyered to death,” he says. “It’s the most expensive book ever published.”
ITV’s The Hack, which also stars Robert Carlyle and Toby Jones, starts tonight at 9pm.