won his historic phone hacking lawsuit Friday against the publisher of the Daily Mirror and was awarded over 140,000 pounds ($180,000) in 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 鈥渨idespread and habitual鈥� at Mirror Group Newspapers over many years and private investigators 鈥渨ere an integral part of the system鈥� to gather information unlawfully on Harry and his associates. He said executives at the papers were aware of the practice and covered it up.
Fancourt found the newspapers had invaded the Duke of Sussex鈥檚 privacy by using unlawful information gathering to produce 15 of the 33 newspaper articles examined at trial as a representative sampling from nearly 150 Harry cited.
Harry said the ruling was 鈥渧indicating and affirming鈥� and should serve as a warning to other news media that used similar practices, an overt reference to two tabloid publishers that face upcoming trials in lawsuits that make nearly identical allegations.
鈥淭oday is a great day for truth, as well as accountability,鈥� Harry said in a statement read by his lawyer outside court. 鈥淚鈥檝e been told that slaying dragons will get you burned. But in light of today鈥檚 victory and the importance of doing what is needed for a free and honest press, it is a worthwhile price to pay. The mission continues.鈥�
Fancourt awarded the duke damages for the distress he suffered and a further sum for aggravated damages to 鈥渞eflect the particular hurt and sense of outrage鈥� over the fact that two directors at Trinity Mirror knew about the activity and didn鈥檛 stop it.
鈥淚nstead of doing so, they turned a blind eye to what was going on and positively concealed it,鈥� Fancourt said. 鈥淗ad the illegal conduct been stopped, the misuse of the duke鈥檚 private information would have ended much sooner.鈥�
Harry, the estranged younger son of King Charles III, had sought 440,000 pounds ($560,000) as part of a crusade against the British media that bucked his family鈥檚 longstanding aversion to litigation and made him the first senior member of the royal family to .
His appearance in the witness box over two days in June created a spectacle as he lobbed allegations that Mirror Group Newspapers had employed journalists who eavesdropped on voicemails and hired private investigators to use deception and unlawful means to learn about him and other family members.
鈥淚 believe that phone hacking was at an industrial scale across at least three of the papers at the time,鈥� Harry asserted . 鈥淭hat is beyond any doubt.鈥�
Harry had a tendency in his testimony 鈥渢o assume that everything published was the product of voicemail interception,鈥� which was not the case, the judge said. He said Mirror Group was 鈥渘ot responsible for all of the unlawful activity directed at the duke.鈥�
Mirror Group welcomed the judgment for providing the 鈥渘ecessary clarity to move forward from events that took place many years ago.鈥�
鈥淲here historical wrongdoing took place, we apologize unreservedly, have taken full responsibility and paid appropriate compensation,鈥� the company said in statement.
The case is the first of Harry has brought to court against the tabloids over allegations of phone hacking or some form of unlawful information gathering. They form the front line of attack in what he says is his life鈥檚 mission to reform the media.
Harry鈥檚 beef with the news media runs deep and is cited throughout He blames paparazzi for causing the car crash that killed his mother, Princess Diana, and he said led him and his wife, Meghan, to for the U.S. in 2020.
Harry alleged that Mirror Group Newspapers used unlawful means to produce nearly 150 stories on his early life between 1996 and 2010, including his romances, injuries and alleged drug use. The reporting caused great emotional distress, he said, but was hard to prove because the newspapers destroyed records.
Of the 33 articles at the center of the trial, Mirror denied using unlawful reporting methods for 28 and made no admissions concerning the remaining five.
Fancourt previously tossed out Harry鈥檚 hacking claims against the publisher of The Sun. He is allowing Harry and actor Hugh Grant, who has similar claims, to proceed to trial on allegations that News Group Newspapers journalists used other unlawful methods to snoop on them.
Another judge recently gave Harry the go-ahead to take a similar case to trial against the publisher of the Daily Mail, rejecting the newspaper鈥檚 efforts to throw out the lawsuit.
Phone hacking by British newspapers dates back more than two decades to a time when unethical journalists used an unsophisticated method of phoning the numbers of royals, celebrities, politicians and sports stars and, when prompted to leave a message, punched in default passcodes to eavesdrop on voicemails.
The practice erupted into a full-blown scandal in 2011 when Rupert Murdoch鈥檚 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.
Newspapers were later found to have used more intrusive means such as phone tapping, home bugging and obtaining flight information and medical records.
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鈥檚 case. It said it used legitimate reporting methods to get information on the prince.
In one instance, Mirror Group apologized 鈥渦nreservedly鈥� for hiring a private investigator for a story about Harry partying at a nightclub in February 2004. Although the article, headlined 鈥淪ex on the beach with Harry,鈥� wasn鈥檛 among those at issue in the trial, Mirror Group said he should be compensated 500 pounds ($637).
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