Court finds in favour of Prince Harry regarding phone hacking claims against British newspaper

Posted on 16 December 2023

Despite the judgement he was involved, former editor Piers Morgan claims he had no knowledge of phone hacking

A British court has found in favour of the Duke of Sussex, Prince Harry, after he took court action against British publisher Mirror Group Newspapers. Further claims made against other British newspapers will be heard in the new year.

In a summary of the findings today, the BBC reported:

In a 386-page ruling, a judge found that Prince Harry had been a victim of phone hacking by Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN).

The royal was awarded £140,600 in damages and called this “a great day for truth as well as accountability”.

Justice Fancourt said unlawful information gathering was “widespread” at the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and People newspapers from 1996 onwards, and phone hacking became “habitual” from 1998.

MGN has previously admitted that phone hacking took place at its papers, issuing a public apology in 2015, but denied it in this case.

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London newspaper covers: There was no mention of the case on the cover of the Mirror. The only papers to feature the court ruling on page 1 were The Guardian and The Independent. The Telegraph did feature a photo of Piers Morgan, with a headline claiming Harry was out to destroy the British monarchy.

In his lengthy finding, the judge said in part :
I have found the Duke’s case of voicemail interception and unlawful information gathering proved in part only. I found that 15 out of the 33 articles that were tried were the product of phone hacking of his mobile phone or the mobile phones of his associates, or the product of other unlawful information gathering. I consider that his phone was only hacked to a modest extent, and that this was probably carefully controlled by certain people at each newspaper. However, it did happen on occasions from about the end of 2003 to April 2009 (which was the date of the last article that I examined). There was a tendency for the Duke in his evidence to assume that everything published was the product of voicemail interception because phone hacking was rife within Mirror Group at the time. But phone hacking was not the only journalistic tool at the time, and his claims in relation to the other 18 articles did not stand up to careful analysis.

I have accordingly awarded the Duke damages in respect of each of the articles and invoices where unlawful information gathering was proved. I have also awarded a further sum to compensate the Duke fully for the distress that he suffered as a result of the unlawful activity directed at him and those close to him. I recognise that Mirror Group was not responsible for all the unlawful activity that was directed at the Duke, and that a good deal of the oppressive behaviour of the Press towards the Duke over the years was not unlawful at all. Mirror Group therefore only played a small part in everything that the Duke suffered and the award of damages on this ground is therefore modest.

Harry & Meghan

Implications from the ruling are still being digested in the British media.

There was plenty of interest in how former Mirror editor Piers Morgan would respond.

Watch this statement Piers Morgan read to the media outside his London home today as carried on GB News.

This is how Morgan’s statement was reported on by his former Newspaper, The Mirror:

Piers Morgan has said he “never hacked a phone or told anyone else to hack a phone”, after a High Court judge accepted evidence that he knew journalists were involved in the practice.

The comments from Mr Morgan, who was Daily Mirror editor between 1995 and 2004, came after a ruling over phone-hacking claims brought by Prince Harry against publisher Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN).

He insisted he had “zero knowledge” of the single article published in his time as editor of the Daily Mirror which may have involved illegal information gathering.

Speaking outside his home in London on Friday, the former editor turned broadcaster said: “There is just one article relating to the prince [Harry] published in The Daily Mirror during my entire nine-year tenure as editor that he [High Court judge] thinks may have involved some unlawful information gathering.

“To be clear, I had then and still have zero knowledge of how that particular story was gathered.”

Hitting out at Prince Harry, he added: “I want to say this: Prince Harry’s outrage at media intrusion into the private lives of the royal family is only matched by his own ruthless, greedy and hypocritical enthusiasm for doing it himself.”

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