LONDON – Prince Harry won a “monumental” victory over billionaire Rupert Murdoch’s British newspaper group on January 22 after the publisher settled its lawsuit, admitting for the first time to wrongful acts at its Sun tabloid and paying significant damages.
Prince Harry, 40, the younger son of King Charles, sued News Group Newspapers (NGN), publisher of The Sun and the now-defunct News of the World, in the High Court in London, claiming the newspapers illegally obtained private information about him procured it from 1996 to 2011.
NGN also admitted that it had invaded the private life of Prince Harry’s late mother, Princess Diana. A source familiar with the settlement said the damages were in the eight-figure range.
“In a monumental victory, News UK today admitted that The Sun, the flagship title of Rupert Murdoch’s British media empire, did indeed engage in illegal practices,” Prince Harry and his co-plaintiff, British lawmaker Tom Watson, said in a statement.
“Today the lies are exposed. Today the cover-ups are being exposed. And today proves that no one is above the law. The time for accountability has come,” said the statement read out to the Supreme Court by her lawyer, Mr David Sherborne.
The trial to review Prince Harry’s case and a similar lawsuit from Mr Watson were due to begin on January 21, but after last-minute talks the two sides agreed to a settlement, with NGN saying there had been misconduct at The Sun I had denied it for years.
“NGN fully apologizes to the Duke of Sussex for the serious intrusion into his private life by The Sun between 1996 and 2011, including incidents of unlawful activity by private investigators working for The Sun,” Mr Sherborne told the court.
“NGN also apologizes 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.”
It also admitted to taking action against Mr Watson, including when he was a junior minister under then Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who was due to give evidence if the trial had taken place.
“Strong controls”
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.
“There are strict controls and processes in place across all of our titles today to ensure this cannot happen now. “There was no voicemail interception at The Sun,” the spokesman said, adding that the settlement marked a likely end to all lawsuits and that future cases would likely be dismissed.
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 against celebrities, politicians, well-known sports figures and ordinary people associated with them or major events.
In their joint statement, Prince Harry and Mr Watson said NGN had now paid out more than 1 billion pounds (S$1.67 billion).
NGN 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 alleged in Prince Harry’s lawsuit.
Prince Harry said his mission was to find out the truth and hold publishers’ executives and editors to account after other plaintiffs resolved their cases to avoid the risk of a multi-million pound court case that would be imposed even then could have been won if they had won in court, but had rejected NGN’s offer.
Prince Harry’s main target was Ms Rebekah Brooks, who was editor of The Sun for a time when NGN admitted the unlawful behavior and is now chief executive of News UK, the British arm of News Corp.
“They now admit that when she was editor of The Sun she ran a criminal enterprise,” Prince Harry and Mr Watson’s statement said, adding they wanted the police and Parliament “to investigate Perjury and the Cover-Ups.”
However, NGN’s apology did not directly address any misconduct by its senior executives, nor did it allege there had been a cover-up by current or former executives.
London police said there was no active investigation underway.
“We are awaiting any correspondence from the parties involved, to which we will respond in due course,” a spokesman said. REUTERS
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