Prince Harry vs. The Mirror: Judge Rules ‘Extensive’ Phone Hacking Took Place, Awards $180,000 in Damages

Prince Harry has received a judgement in his case against British tabloid newspaper The Mirror. Mr Justice Fancourt, who presided over the trial earlier this year, said he found “extensive” phone hacking between 2006 and 2011, the PA reports.

Judge Fancourt, who handed down his lengthy judgment on Friday morning, local time, added that the British royal’s phone was likely hacked “to a modest extent” between 2003 and 2009. He has been awarded “modest” damages, amounting to £140,600 ($180,000) to cover the “hurt” caused by the publisher’s “concealment” of their wrongdoing.

Harry, who now lives in California, sued the paper’s publisher Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), alleging that more than 30 stories it had printed about him dating back to the early 2000s had been written as a result of “unlawful information gathering,” colloquially known as hacking. The judge said Harry had proved his case in 15 of 33 of those instances.

But he added that Harry had a “tendency” to assume all articles about him and come from unlawful information gathering but that was not the case. “Phone hacking was not the only journalistic tool at the time and his claim in relation to the other 18 articles did not stand up to careful analysis.”

“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,” his judgment continued.

Judge Fancourt did not hand down an over-all ruling but instead gave detailed findings on each of the stories, det

Harry became the first senior royal in 130 years to testify when he entered the witness box at London’s High Court during the trial earlier this year. He was grilled over two days by MGN’s lawyer Andrew Green KC over dozens of articles which the prince claimed were the result of intercepting voicemails, impersonation or bribery.

In all instances bar one, for which the publisher accepted responsibility and apologized for at the beginning of the trial, MGN denied the claims. In court, Green repeatedly pointed out that information on which the stories were based had come from Buckingham Palace press officers, other publications or, in one case, an interview the prince himself had given to the Press Association.

Broadcaster Piers Morgan edited The Mirror between 1995 and 2004, the period during which many of those stories were published. He did not testify during the trial — and said in a statement following the judgment that he was not asked by either side to testify — but in his judgment Judge Fancourt said Morgan would “very likely have known” about at least one instance of unlawful information gathering.

Morgan appeared outside his home this afternoon to give a blistering statement to the press in which he said that, as he was not a part of the trial, “I wasn’t able to respond to the many false allegations that were spewed about me in court by old foes with an axe to grind.”

“I’ve never hacked a phone or told anyone else to hack a phone and nobody has produced any actual evidence to prove that I did,” Morgan said. “Prince Harry’s outrage about the 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. He talked today about the appalling behaviour of the press, but this is a guy who has repeatedly trashed his family in public for hundreds of millions of dollars… It’s hard to imagine frankly more appalling behaviour than that.”

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The prince was not alone in his lawsuit against the tabloid publisher. He was joined by “Coronation Street” actors Michael Le Vell and Nikki Sanderson and by the ex-wife of comedian Paul Whitehouse, Fiona Wightman. Harry was represented in court by high-profile lawyer David Sherborne, whose other clients include Johnny Depp, Hugh Grant and Coleen Rooney.

In his controversial memoir “Spare,” Harry revealed he had met Sherborne while vacationing at Elton John’s home in the South of France, and the lawyer had encouraged him to fight back in court against what he believed were unlawful journalistic practices.

The prince is involved in a number of other lawsuits, including against the Daily Mail publisher Associated Newspapers and against the British government regarding security.

Harry was not in court on Friday, with his lawyer saying it was due to the “short notice” of the hearing. In a statement, which was read out in court by Harry’s lawyer, he said: “Today is a great day for truth as well as accountability. The Court has ruled that unlawful and criminal activities were carried out at all three of Mirror Group’s newspaper titles (The Mirror, The Sunday Mirror and The People) on a habitual and widespread basis for more than a decade.”

“Today’s ruling is vindicating and affirming,” Harry continued. “I’ve been told that slaying dragons will get you burned. But in light of today’s victory and the importance of doing what is needed for a free and honest press – it’s a worthwhile price to pay. The mission continues.” Read his full statement below.

“Today is a great day for truth as well as accountability. The Court has ruled that unlawful and criminal activities were carried out at all three of Mirror Group’s newspaper titles (The Mirror, The Sunday Mirror and The People) on a habitual and widespread basis for more than a decade. 
 
I’d like to thank my legal team for so successfully dismantling the sworn testimony of Mirror Group Newspaper’s senior executives, legal department and journalists who at least turned up to Court, unlike their colleagues, who were perhaps too afraid to do so.
 
This case is not just about hacking; it is about a systemic practice of unlawful and appalling behaviour, followed by cover-ups and destruction of evidence, the shocking scale of which can only be revealed through these proceedings. The Court has found that Mirror Group’s principal board directors, their legal department, senior executives, and editors such as Piers Morgan, clearly knew about or were involved in these illegal activities. Between them, they even went as far as lying under oath to parliament, during the Leveson Inquiry, to the Stock Exchange, and to us all ever since.
 
The journey to justice can be a slow and painful one, and since bringing my claim almost five years ago, defamatory stories and intimidating tactics have been deployed against me and at my family’s expense. And so, as I too have learnt through this process, patience is in fact a virtue – especially in the face of vendetta journalism.
 
I hope that the Court’s findings will serve as a warning to all media organisations who have employed these practices and similarly lied about them. Mirror Group’s actions were so calculated and misleading that their pattern of destroying evidence and concealing their unlawful behaviour continued into the litigation itself and, as the Judge has ruled, even to this day. 
 
I am happy to have won the case, especially given that this trial only looked at a quarter of my entire claim. Even on just that, it is clear Mirror Group’s persistent attempts to suggest that my claim was, to quote their counsel, ‘fantastical’ and was in the ‘realms of total speculation’ and that there was ‘simply no evidence at all’ to suggest I was hacked, ‘zilch, zero, nil, nada, niente absolutely nothing,’ were total nonsense and were used maliciously to attack my character and credibility. However, as Mirror Group intended, these hollow soundbites were blasted across front pages and across online platforms, and into the next day’s morning television shows. The Court has in fact confirmed that all four claimants were subjected to voicemail interception and unlawful information gathering. But no one would have believed that was the case given how this trial has been covered in the U.K.
 
My commitment to seeing this case through is based on my belief in our need and collective right to a free and honest press, and one which is properly accountable when necessary. That is what we need in Britain and across the globe. Anything else is poisoning the well for a profession we all depend on. The acts listed in this judgement are prime examples of what happens when the power of the press is abused. 
 
I respectfully call upon the authorities – the financial regulator, the Stock Market who were deliberately deceived by Mirror Group, and indeed the Metropolitan Police and prosecuting authorities – to do their duty for the British public and investigate bringing charges against the company and those who have broken the law.
 
Today’s ruling is vindicating and affirming. I’ve been told that slaying dragons will get you burned. But in light of today’s victory and the importance of doing what is needed for a free and honest press – it’s a worthwhile price to pay. The mission continues.”