Corrupt policemen tipped off journalists about celebrity victims of crime before other officers had time to respond to their calls for assistance, the actor Hugh Grant claimed.
In an escalation of the allegations facing the police, Grant said he had experience of reporting crimes and discovering the first person on his doorstep was a tabloid journalist.
Grant suggested he would raise the issue when called to give evidence before Lord Justice Leveson's inquiry into phone hacking.
Speaking before a meeting with British Prime Minister David Cameron to discuss phone hacking, Grant said he had become aware of untoward practices involving the police and tabloid reporters long before the issue of phone hacking came into the public domain.
"You knew if you ever called the police for burglary or mugging or whatever the first person to come round was not a policeman but a journalist. For years you would think very much twice about calling the police over anything. I want Leveson to uncover the full extent of the relationship between tabloid papers and the police because I think we have only scratched the surface of that."
