Prince Harry won a “monumental” victory over Rupert Murdoch’s British newspaper group on Wednesday after the publisher settled its lawsuit, admitting for the first time to unlawful actions at his Sun tabloid and paying unspecified damages.
Harry, 40, the younger son of King Charles, sued the publisher of the Sun and the long-defunct News of the World in the High Court in London, claiming News Groups Newspapers (NGN) unlawfully obtained private information about him from 1996 to 1996 2011.
According to a statement read out in court by Harry’s lawyer David Sherborne, the News Group apologized “fully and unequivocally to the Duke of Sussex” for “the tapping of phones, surveillance and misuse of private information by journalists and private investigators on their behalf.” .
Sherborne said a settlement had been reached with NGN, which agreed to pay significant damages, and that NGN had admitted that Harry was the victim of unlawful activity by the Sun and that the News of the World was the victim of phone hacking .
Hear from Prince Harry’s lawyer David Sherborne after a settlement was reached on Wednesday in a long-running privacy claim against Rupert Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers.
Sherborne said “the time for accountability has come” and called on British police and the British government to investigate. He claimed NGN executives helped delete 30 million emails over the years, complicating the civil lawsuit.
The lawyer, who said the plaintiffs wanted to provide police with a “dossier to uncover wrongdoing,” also took aim at Rebekah Brooks, who was editor of the Sun between 2003 and 2009.
Brooks resigned from parent company News Corp UK shortly before her arrest in July 2011 on suspicion of plotting communications interceptions and other charges. She was acquitted in a trial in 2014 and returned to News Corp UK the following year.
“At her trial in 2014, Rebekah Brooks said, ‘When I was editor of The Sun, we cleaned everything up,'” Sherburne said. “Now, 10 years later, when she is CEO of the company, they admit that when she was editor of The Sun, they ran a criminal enterprise.”
Full apology to Harry
“NGN apologizes fully and unequivocally to the Duke of Sussex for The Sun’s serious intrusion into his private life between 1996 and 2011, including incidents of unlawful activity by private investigators working for The Sun,” News Group’s apology said.
“NGN also apologizes fully and unequivocally to the Duke of Sussex for the News of the World’s phone hacking, surveillance and misuse of private information by its journalists and private investigators.”
“NGN continues to apologize to the Duke for the impact of the extensive reporting and serious intrusion into his private life and into the private life of Diana, Princess of Wales, his late mother, particularly in his younger years.”
“We acknowledge and apologize for the suffering caused to the Duke and for the damage caused to relationships, friendships and family and have agreed to pay him significant damages.”
According to News Group, harmful actions are a thing of the past
Harry has long railed against British tabloids over their reporting and paparazzi and has sued several British tabloid companies.
He first filed the lawsuit against NGN in 2019, and an eight-week process to decide the hard-fought lawsuit was set to begin on Tuesday.
Harry – who became the first senior royal in 130 years to appear as a witness in court in a separate trial in 2023 – was due to give evidence next month.
Harry is currently believed to be in California, where he currently lives.
Harry admitted in a British documentary that the crusade was “part of a rift” with members of the royal family.
King Charles rejected the lawsuit, Harry explained in his court papers.
NGN has paid out hundreds of millions of pounds to victims of phone hacking and other unlawful information gathering by the News of the World and settled more than 1,300 lawsuits involving celebrities, politicians, well-known sports figures and ordinary people with whom the company was associated or major events.
But it has consistently denied any allegations that wrongdoing occurred at the Sun newspaper or that senior figures knew about it or tried to cover it up, as Harry’s lawsuit alleges.
In a statement, an NGN spokesman said its apology concerned the unlawful actions of private investigators working for The Sun and not those of journalists.
“Today there are strict controls and processes in place across all of our titles to ensure this cannot happen now. There was no interception of voicemails at The Sun,” the spokesman said, adding that the settlement marks the likely and future end of all legal cases at risk of being dismissed.
Sian Harrison, a London-based author and media law expert, told CBC News that Harry received a “significant” concession from the Sun but that the tabloid and its corporate executives will be happy to avoid spreading damaging allegations in court have.
While the prince vowed to pursue the lawsuit all the way to the courtroom, Harrison said she believed the fact that British civil law imposes prohibitive legal costs on those who lose lawsuits was undoubtedly a factor.
Harrison added that despite Sherborne’s comments outside court, it was “probably quite unlikely” that further criminal charges would be filed all these years later.
British lawmakers also receive an apology
Labour’s Tom Watson, who sits in the House of Lords, was due to attend the trial over similar claims to the Duke of Sussex. Watson also received an apology from the Murdoch firm on Wednesday.
NGN apologized “fully and unequivocally to Lord Watson for the unwarranted intrusion into his private life by the News of the World during his reign in the period 2009-2011.”
Former Labor deputy leader Tom Watson, who also won a settlement on Wednesday, praised the British prince’s courage and determination in battling the tabloids of media baron Rupert Murdoch and others.
In their joint statement, Harry and Watson said NGN has now paid out more than 1 billion pounds (1.77 billion Canadian dollars) over the years.
Watson, in his own remarks to the court, praised Harry’s “bravery and astonishing courage” in pursuing the matter “under extraordinary pressure.”
Lawmakers called on Rupert Murdoch to personally apologize to Harry and others whose privacy was violated by entities in his media empire.
Hugh Grant settled with NGN last year over claims journalists used private investigators to tap his phone and break into his home. The actor expressed reluctance, but said that legal fees may be prohibitive and that he would donate proceeds from the settlement reached to press advocacy groups.
The News of the World failed after 168 years of operation in the wake of the phone hacking scandal.
At a British Parliament hearing in 2011, Murdoch expressed regret over what had happened in his British newspapers, but stressed that he bore no personal responsibility.
Prince Harry declares victory after a London judge said he was the victim of phone hacking by British publisher Mirror Group Newspapers.
“The people I trusted to run it, and then maybe the people they trusted,” he said.
Murdoch’s companies include numerous other news organizations around the world, including Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post in the US, the Times of London in the UK and several companies in his native Australia.
Harry was previously awarded £140,600 (approximately $240,430 CAD) after London’s High Court ruled that he was the victim of “modest” phone hacking and other illegal information gathering by journalists from Britain’s Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN).
Harry had sued MGN, publishers of the Daily Mirror, the Sunday Mirror and the Sunday People.
But the Duke of Sussex was ordered to pay legal costs to the Daily Mail in another failed court case and subsequently abandoned the case.
