London, July 15 : Actor Hugh Grant has said he is proud of playing a role that led to the shutdown of the News of the World.

He said a reporter Paul McMullan had informed him that a private investigator hired by his company had hacked Grant.

Grant decided to investigate further after the police "did nothing" on being alerted to the scandal earlier this year.

He met up with McMullan and asked him on what the hack said was "routine", while secretly taping the conversation.

The information given by McMullen became the basis for an article that Grant wrote for the magazine, New Statesman, which first highlighted to the public, the extent of the News of the World’s sleazy practices.

Grant said he had no problems outing McMullan and secretly taping his boasts.

"It felt like symmetry for sure. You know, they hacked me, I hacked him", the Express. co. uk quoted Grant, as saying.

He called for a full-scale probe into the working of the tabloid newspaper industry.

He had also joined a protest in London calling for a probe into the scandal

“We need an inquiry that uncovers all the practices and indeed culture, not just at the News of the World but of all tabloid journalism in this country because what we are going to find out over the next weeks and months is that this wasn''t just at the News of the World," the Sky News quoted Grant, as saying. (ANI)