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.” He has been awarded “modest” damages, amounting to £140,600 ($180,000).
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 those.
Judge Fancourt did not hand down an over-all ruling but instead gave detailed findings on each of the stories, determining whether or not he found the prince’s allegations credible.
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.
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.
