Prince Harry faces Fleet Street for hacking

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More than a decade after the closure of News of the World – and almost twenty years after the crimes in question – the newspapers have once again been dragged to court over hacking charges.

But this time, the executives of three news groups are facing a new and potentially more implacable opponent in Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, as part of a cast of celebrities and politicians with differing grievances.

The complaints were made in the High Court against Rupert Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers, the parent company of the Sun and the defunct News of the World; Associated Newspapers, publisher of the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday; and Mirror Group Newspapers, whose parent company is now known as Reach.

“Prince Harry is on a mission against what he considers a ‘system’ that exists in Britain between the tabloid media and the royal family,” said media analyst Alice Enders.

“He wishes . . . in principle to do as much reputational damage as possible. The money obviously doesn’t matter as much as the mission. Phone hacking has just fallen from the public eye and Prince Harry has brought it back to the fore.” .

The civil lawsuits against the tabloids by Prince Harry, who is due to appear in court in June, have breathed new life into the long-running phone hacking scandal. This first erupted in 2011 when it emerged that News of the World reporters had hacked into murdered teenager Milly Dowler’s voice mail.

The subsequent outcry led to the newspaper’s closure, a public inquiry into the culture, practices and ethics of the press, and a sprawling police investigation.

All news groups are contesting the claims of the use of phone hacking, arguing that some were brought in too late while others are just plain wrong.

NGN and MGN have admitted previous failures and resolved other grievances. Essentially, legal experts say the arguments now center around whether the claims by Prince Harry and others should have been made after the allegations first surfaced more than a decade ago, or whether new evidence and testimony are sufficient for cases to be heard in court. .

The results so far are not uniform. Judge Sir Timothy Fancourt said in a written ruling on Friday that some charges in actor Hugh Grant’s lawsuit against NGN had been filed too late, but others could continue to prosecute.

Despite the waves of hacking litigation, there has so far been only one full-blown High Court trial – in 2015 – involving eight celebrities suing MGN.

The group paid £1.2m in damages after the High Court concluded there was a “widespread culture of phone hacking” which extended from journalists to “more senior staff”.

Hundreds of victims have since filed civil suits and MGN has paid 600 claims.

The High Court trial against the group is the first of Prince Harry’s several legal battles with the tabloids. In an interview with ITV’s Tom Bradby earlier this year, the royal described his campaign to change the media as his “life’s work”.

In written submissions, he said that the illegal intelligence gathering had caused him “tremendous distress” and “presented very real security problems not only for me but for everyone around me”, as well as creating “a huge amount of paranoia in my relationships.”

The case is significant because for the first time a judge has been asked to examine how far the company has gone to wrongdoing. The group has long argued that the irregularities were not known at senior levels.

MGN said, “Where historic wrongdoing has occurred, we have admitted, take full responsibility and apologize unreservedly, but will vigorously defend against allegations of wrongdoing where our reporters have acted lawfully.”

King Charles’ younger son is separately suing NGN about Murdoch. The group admitted the phone hack occurred to the News of the World but not the Sun.

Alan Rusbridger, former editor of the Guardian newspaper who led the News of the World’s reporting of phone hacking, said the cases could be “personally embarrassing” for Murdoch and his family, as well as “corporate harm” for the groups. average.

NGN said that in 2011 an unreserved apology was issued to victims of the News of the World’s intercepted voicemails. Since then, it has paid financial damages to those with “legitimate claims.”

He added that “as we reach the end of litigation, NGN is drawing a line on contentious issues, some of which date back more than 20 years. There are a number of contentious claims still pending in the civil courts, some of which seek to implicate the Sun. The Sun takes no responsibility or makes any admissions to the allegations. Statute of limitations is now also an issue in a series of pending complaints.

Prince Harry also denounces illegal intelligence-gathering by Associated Newspapers, owner of the Daily Mail, which denies wrongdoing and has so far avoided being dragged into the scandal.

Both NGN and Associated Newspapers, which declined to comment, are awaiting separate rulings on whether Prince Harry’s lawsuits can proceed to trial.

Prince Harry is seen by media analysts as a different kind of challenger, less likely to settle for money because he wants to see what he would consider the truth come out in court.

He is one of several high-profile figures who have filed damages claims, including singer Cheryl Cole, Sir Elton John and David Furnish, actress Elizabeth Hurley and former Liberal Democrat MP Sir Simon Hughes.

Their cases could cause new financial headaches for newsgroups already seeking to cut costs and streamline operations.

NGN has so far paid over £1bn in settlements and legal fees to cover the cases, according to estimates by Enders media analysts. These payments are covered by Murdoch’s US broadcaster, Fox, under the terms of the demerger of News Corp and 21st Century Fox. MGN paid around £100m in damages and costs, but provided a further £50m for these cases.

Most of the lawsuits were settled by media groups before trial. Enders said it is difficult to quantify the potential liability of this latest litigation, “not only because the process has only just begun, but also because the final outcome depends on the number of plaintiffs and the extent of the intrusions each of them has suffered” .