It has cost Rupert Murdoch more than £1bn over 12 years; the Mirror group has lost more than £100mn: the huge sums forked out to stop people whose privacy had been invaded by the papers and their private lives ruined going to court.
Phone-hacking and the media
According to a report by the Commons home affairs select committee, “as many as 12,800 people” may have been victims of phone hacking. There were other dirty tricks as well: blagging or bribing public officials, such as the police, to extort private information on people. Many journalists have confessed to these practices, which were rife throughout the 2000s.
In 2013-14 there was a ten-month criminal trial at which five journalists and junior executives at the News of the World were jailed; the top bosses miraculously escaped. There was a public inquiry led by Lord Justice Leveson that heard jaw-dropping accounts of crime and corruption involving the press with government and the police.
Hundreds of legal claims have been launched by victims. Yet not one came to court, as first the Sun and then the Mirror group paid six-figure sums to prevent having to admit liability for their crimes, which they sometimes deny to this day!
Prince Harry’s legal battle: background
That was until this year, in May, when an unlikely hero rode into town, too rich for money to buy. For Prince Harry it is personal: he believes that his mother, Princess Diana, was hounded to her death by press photographers in Paris, that he has since infancy been made to perform for the cameras, that his private life has been snooped on and sabotaged since his teens, and that since he set up with his American mixed-race wife they have been subjected to endless and insane abuse from the popular media.
They cast Harry and Meghan as villains to aggravate the division in the royal family and generate hatred – a favourite preoccupation.
That was a mistake. It split Harry off from the mainstream royal approach to controversy: say nothing, but deal behind the scenes. The family accept media intrusion on a manageable and tolerable level, but the treatment of the Sussexes is without precedent. Harry bothers them because he stopped playing the game.
He found out about a grubby secret deal between the palace and the Murdoch press, under which his brother William was paid £1mn-plus in lieu of a lawsuit over intrusion (which is nothing alongside what the Sussexes have to endure).
Harry also happens across a leading media barrister at a party who tells him he’s got a strong case – not necessarily a reliable lead! – and David Sherborne KC, who had acted with success for Colleen Rooney in the soccer wives’ case, launched Harry’s phone-hacking case against the Mirror in May. Judgement is awaited.
Has Harry left it too long?
A legal snag with the case is the time lag since the intrusions took place. Victims must start a civil action within six years of the wrongdoing or when they knew about it. Phone hacking was stopped more than six years ago, but when did Harry know?
For sure he would never have been able to bring a case when he was a working royal. He has accused palace officials of “seemingly blocking our every move” as part of their strategy to “keep the media onside”.
Harry now has five cases – against the Daily Mail as well as the Sun and the Mirror. Meghan has already won a warm-up action against the Mail, over copyright – the publication of a private letter she wrote to her father. There are also intrusion cases against the Mail and the Sun, and a libel case against the Mail.
Until now, none of the aftereffects of phone hacking have had much effect on the right-wing press.
- The criminal trial … a few hacks got nicked but the bosses are untouched; there have been no more prosecutions;
- Leveson inquiry … it came up with a half-baked plan for better press regulation but they swatted that aside with disdain;
- Civil claims … just buy them out; it’s only money, and profits weren’t affected.
Can a driven ex-royal with deep pockets and nothing to lose stop this rot?
There are still hundreds of unsettled claims, and if Harry loses the publishers will stop buying them off. On the other hand, if he wins …
Ed: The trial has now come to an end, with a verdict expected in August.
Article first published in Media North: Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom (North). For more from Media North, and to subscribe to their newsletter, visit their website.
