Prince Harry wins £140,000 from publisher of The Mirror after Supreme Court rules he was victim of phone hacking between 2003 and 2009

Prince Harry has won £140,000 from the publisher of The Mirror after the High Court ruled he was the victim of phone hacking.

The Duke of Sussex’s case was “partly proven”, Judge Fancourt said. Journalists from the Sunday Mirror, the People and the Daily Mirror had unlawfully obtained Harry’s private information for news stories, he found.

He ruled that the duke’s phone was likely hacked to a “modest extent” between 2003 and 2009.

The landmark case concluded at the High Court after a seven-week trial over the summer, with Harry becoming the first senior royal to testify in more than 100 years.

In a statement from the duke read outside court today by his lawyer David Sherborne, Harry said it was “a great day for the truth, but also for accountability.”

He said: ‘This case is not just about hacking – it is about a systemic practice of unlawful and abhorrent conduct, followed by cover-up and destruction of evidence, the shocking extent of which can only be exposed through these proceedings.’

Mr Justice Fancourt found that 15 of the 33 articles about Harry came from hacking.

The judge said: ‘I am of the opinion that his phone was only moderately hacked and that this was probably carefully monitored by certain people at each newspaper. However, it happened occasionally between late 2003 and April 2009.’

But he said Harry had “a tendency” to assume that anything published was the product of voicemail hacking. Of the remaining 18 articles, he said Harry’s claims “did not stand up to careful analysis.”

The Duke had demanded at least £440,000 in damages. Mr Fancourt awarded him £140,600 and said Harry had suffered suffering ‘as a result of the unlawful activity directed against him and those close to him’.

Part of the damages consisted of ‘aggravated’ damages because the judge found that two directors of the Mirror’s board were aware of the hacking but ‘turned a blind eye’ instead of putting an end to it.

David Sherborne reads a written statement on behalf of his client Prince Harry following the ruling in his favor in a lawsuit against the Mirror Group. He said: ‘A great day for the truth, but also for accountability’

Harry, 39, sued Mirror Group Newspapers for damages, claiming that journalists on the titles were associated with methods such as phone hacking, so-called ‘blagging’ or obtaining information through deception, and the use of private -detectives for illegal activities.

The newspaper claimed that the stories did not come from hackers, but from members of the royal family and even from his own interviews.

Harry flew from America to testify in court, becoming the first senior British royal to do so since 1890.

In his ruling, the judge said there had been “extensive” use of phone hacking across the three Mirror newspapers between 2006 and 2011, “even for a period during the Leveson inquiry”.

Following the ruling, Mirror Group Newspapers said: ‘We welcome today’s judgment which provides the company with the clarity it needs to move forward from events that occurred many years ago. Where historical misconduct has occurred, we offer our unreserved apologies, have taken full responsibility and paid appropriate compensation.”

Former Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan described those who gave evidence in Harry’s case as “old enemies of mine with an ax to grind”, naming author Omid Scobie and journalist Alastair Campbell.

Making a statement outside his west London home, Morgan told reporters: ‘I have not been called as a witness by either side in the case – it is important that people know this – nor have I been asked to provide one. to make a statement. I would have happily agreed to do either or both of these things if I had been asked.

‘I have also not had a single conversation with any of the Mirror Group lawyers during the entire legal process.

‘So I was unable to respond to the many false accusations made about me in court by old enemies of mine who had an ax to grind, most of which, inexplicably, were not even challenged by me in my absence the Mirror Group’s lawyer. .

‘But I know the judge seems to have believed the evidence of Omid Scobie, who lied about me in his new book and lied about me in court, and the whole world now knows him as a deluded fantasist. And he believed the evidence of Alastair Campbell, another proven liar who plunged this country into an illegal war.”