Prince Harry has been awarded £140,600 after bringing a High Court hacking claim against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), winning 15 out of 33 cases. In June, Prince Harry made history when he appeared in the witness box in his case against MGN, undergoing almost eight hours of questioning and appeared emotional when he eventually concluded his testimony.
Today, a High Court judge has ruled that there was “extensive” phone hacking by MGN from 2006 to 2011, “even to some extent” during the Leveson Inquiry into media standards.
The Duke is suing MGN for damages and claims its titles, The Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and Sunday People, were linked to methods including unlawful interception, so-called “blagging” or gaining information by deception, and use of private investigators for unlawful activities.
He alleges about 140 articles published between 1996 and 2010 by MGN titles The Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and Sunday People contained information gathered using unlawful methods. A total of 33 have been selected for consideration at the trial.
MGN contests Harry’s claim and denied that any of the articles complained of resulted from unlawful interception of voicemail.
An MGN spokesperson said: “Where historical wrongdoing has taken place, we have made admissions, take full responsibility and apologise unreservedly, but we will vigorously defend against allegations of wrongdoing where our journalists acted lawfully.
“MGN is now part of a very different company. We are committed to acting with integrity and our objective in this trial is to allow both the business and our journalists to move forward from events that took place many years ago.”
