Prince Harry wins historic phone hacking lawsuit against Daily Mirror
Prince Harry has won a historic phone hacking lawsuit against the publisher of the Daily Mirror, being awarded over 140,000 pounds ($180,000). This is the first of several lawsuits against British tabloids to go to trial in his battles with the press. Justice Timothy Fancourt in the High Court found phone hacking was “widespread and habitual” at Mirror Group Newspapers, causing distress to Prince Harry.
Fancourt awarded the duke damages for the distress he suffered and a further sum for aggravated damages to express his sense of outrage over the fact that two directors at Trinity Mirror knew about the activity and didn’t stop it. The case is the first of three lawsuits Harry has brought to court against the tabloids over allegations of phone hacking or some form of unlawful information gathering.
His beef with the news media runs deep and is cited throughout his memoir, “Spare.” He blames paparazzi for causing the car crash that killed his mother, Princess Diana, and he said intrusions by journalists led him and his wife, Meghan, to leave royal life for the US in 2020.
Phone hacking by British newspapers dates back more than two decades to a time when unethical journalists used unsophisticated methods to eavesdrop on voicemails. The practice erupted into a full-blown scandal in 2011 when Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World was revealed to have intercepted messages of a murdered girl, relatives of deceased British soldiers, and victims of a bombing. Murdoch closed the paper.
Mirror Group Newspapers said it has paid more than 100 million pounds ($128 million) in other phone hacking lawsuits over the years, but denied wrongdoing in Harry’s case. It said it used legitimate reporting methods to get information on the prince.