EastEnders stars Shane Richie and Jessie Wallace 'fell out and didn't speak for five years' because of phone hacking

EastEnders stars Shane Richie and Jessie Wallace - who play Alfie and Kat Moon in the BBC soap - fell out and did not speak for five years because of the level of distrust caused by phone hacking.

Richie, 50, told the High Court that he became very close with the actress, who plays his on-screen wife, when he joined the soap in 2002 and they would leave each other many voicemails.

But when private matters started to appear in the press, the pair fell out after they accused each other of leaking stories to journalists.

"After a while, me and Jessie didn't speak for five years because she didn't trust me and I didn't trust her because we both thought we were selling each other down the river with stories, which it turned out of course wasn't true," Richie told Mr Justice Mann.

The soap stars pictured together in 2003. Credit: PA Wire
Jessie Wallace and Shane Richie returned to EastEnders in 2010 after a five-year absence. Credit: PA Wire
Richie has revealed the effect phone-hacking had on his relationship with his co-star. Credit: PA Wire

He was giving evidence at a hearing to decide the amount of compensation to be awarded in eight representative cases brought against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN).

Richie also revealed how people on the soap were told to be careful what they said to him because he was "gobby".

He said everyone was "pretty paranoid and suspicious of each other which was a horrible feeling".

Some cast members even started to believe their dressing rooms were bugged, he added.

Earlier, co-star Steve McFadden, who plays Phil Mitchell, told the court that Mirror articles written as a result of phone hacking destroyed his relationship with former co-star Lucy Benjamin.