Publisher agrees to pay ‘substantial damages’ to drop protracted legal action
Prince Harry has scored a “monumental” victory over Rupert Murdoch’s British newspaper group after it made an unprecedented apology for intruding into his private life for more than a decade.
Harry, the younger son King Charlessued News Group Newspapers (NGN), publisher of The Sun and the now defunct News of the World, for unlawfully obtaining information about him between 1996 and 2011.
“In today’s monumental victory, News UK has admitted that The Sun, the flagship title of Rupert Murdoch’s British media empire, was indeed involved in wrongdoing,” Harry and his co-accused Tom Watson, a former MP, said in a statement. on Wednesday.
“Today the lies have been exposed. Today, the cover-ups have been exposed. And today proves that no one is above the law. The time for accountability has come,” said a statement read outside the High Court by Harry’s lawyer, David Sherborne.
NGN offered “a full and unequivocal apology to the Duke of Sussex for the serious intrusion … into his private life,” Sherborne said.
The publisher also apologized for interfering with Harry’s mother’s life the late Princess Diana.
NGN agreed to pay Harry “substantial damages”.
Now more than 1300 requests have been resolved – including sa celebrities and politicians – without going to trial, spending more than £1 billion ($1.24 billion) in payouts and legal fees.
The trial in Harry’s case and a similar suit by former MP Tom Watson was due to begin on Tuesday. However, after a one-day delay, the two parties reached an out-of-court settlement.
“This represents vindication for the hundreds of other claimants who were strong-armed into the settlement without being able to get to the truth about what was done to them,” Sherborne said outside the High Court in London.
In a statement, an NGN spokesman said the apology was for the illegal actions of private investigators working for The Sun, not its journalists.
“There are strong controls and processes in place across all our titles today to ensure this cannot happen now. There was no interception of voicemails at The Sun,” the spokesman said, adding that the settlement marked the likely end of all lawsuits and that future cases would be dismissed.
