Judge Finds ‘Extensive’ Phone Hacking At Mirror Group, Awards Prince Harry £140k In Damages

Prince Harry won his landmark privacy case. (AP Photo/Scott Heppell, Pool)

The High Court ruled that Prince Harry will be awarded £140,000 in damages after a decisive ruling Friday which found that Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) engaged in “extensive” phone hacking activities from 2006 to 2011.

The ruling also claims that unlawful newsgathering activity continued “even to some extent” during the Leveson Inquiry into media standards.

The High Court judge, Mr Justice Fancourt, said that the use of private investigators for illegal information gathering was not a rogue operation but an “integral part of the system” within MGN’s three newspapers. Out of 51 investigators implicated in court, 11 were found to be “very substantially” involved in unlawful information gathering operations, feeding information to journalists and editors.

Amidst this scandalous activity, only two MGN directors, Paul Vickers and Sly Bailey, were in the know about the phone hacking. Bailey, however, allegedly turned a blind eye to the hacking, with the extent of phone hacking strategically concealed from the MGN board. The judge said that then-Chairman Sir Victor Blank, and the then-finance director did not know about the activities.

It was also revealed that MGN’s in-house lawyer Marcus Partington was aware of the phone hacking as far back as the end of 2003.

In a separate but related development, the judge in Prince Harry’s legal battle against MGN found damning evidence that key members of the MGN board deliberately concealed the phone hacking scandal from the Leveson Inquiry.

The judge’s findings in Prince Harry’s case were particularly significant. Out of 33 articles scrutinised, 15 were proven to be products of unlawful information gathering, leading to Prince Harry winning substantial damages of £140,000.