Hugh Grant Called on to Help Bring Down Celeb Hackers in Britain

Tabloid reporter purportedly confessed to the actor that the publication paid people to hack into celebs' cell phones

Apparently hacking Kate Middleton was small potatoes.

British authorities are turning up the heat on an investigation into possible incidents of hacking by the Rupert Murdoch-owned News of the World  in light of allegations the tabloid was involved in hacking a murder victim's cell phone back in 2002 and deleting voicemails, thereby making the dead woman's parents think she was still alive.

While Middleton has been named as a hacking victim and Sienna Miller has already been paid and publicly apologized to for being one of 91 people supposedly targeted by News of the World, police are looking to Hugh Grant to bring his expertise to the investigation.

Turns out, the star has been playing detective.

Grant revealed in an essay he wrote for the New Statesman in April that he taped a conversation he had with a former News of the World editor, who admitted during their talk that his paper and "every tabloid on Fleet Street" utilized a variety of unsavory methods to gather information, such as hacking into the mobile phones of people considered newsworthy—including Grant.

Going on that juicy tidbit, Grant is raring to testify at a public inquiry into the scandal. At an emergency Parliament hearing on the matter today, Prime Minister David Cameron called the the tabloid's alleged acts "absolutely digusting."

"We are no longer talking here about politicians and celebrities," Cameron said. "We are talking about murder victims, potentially terrorist victims, having their phones hacked into."

"We need to make sure [the inquiry] is full, public, immediate, with no funny stuff," Grant told the U.K.'s Sky News, adding that an inquiry was necessary because the police have been "dragging their feet."

"They've asked me to be a witness in this case and I'm very happy to help them, but I cannot put all my faith in the Metropolitan Police," he said. "They're going to cover individual crimes, for sure. Certain people will go to prison for sure. But we need an inquiry that uncovers all the practices and indeed the culture, not just by News of the World, but of all tabloid journalism."

Murdoch, whose News Corp. also owns (among many other things) the Wall Street Journal, the oft-salacious New York Post, Britain's Sun tabloid and The Times of London, has called allegations that News of the World staffers hacked into phones and paid off police "deplorable and unacceptable."

"Full and continuing cooperation has been provided to the police since the current investigation started in January 2011," a rep for News International, a subsidiary of News Corp., said in a statement. "Well understood arrangements are in place to ensure that any material of importance to which they are entitled is provided to them. We cannot comment any further due to the ongoing investigations."