Unlock Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, editor-in-chief of the FT, selects her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Rupert Murdoch’s British tabloids have apologized to Prince Harry and agreed to pay him “substantial damages”, after admitting for the first time that illegal activities had taken place at The Sun.
David Sherborne, lawyer for the Duke of Sussex, told the High Court in London on Wednesday that News Group Newspapers had offered the prince a “full and unequivocal apology” for intruding into his private life for 15 years, until 2011.
The admissions are a major blow to the Murdoch empire, 13 years after he shut down the News of the World following a public outcry over the infamous Sunday Redtop phone hacking.
NGN has spent a decade denying any wrongdoing at the Sun, the daily partner of the News of the World, even though it has paid more than £1 billion in fees and settlements to cover almost all of the claims for phone hacking against the company.
NGN admitted no culpability on the part of senior management in the settlement. That means the company will avoid what threatens to be a lengthy, high-profile trial covering wide-ranging allegations of phone hacking and other illegal activities, as well as cover-up allegations involving current and former executives.
The Duke of Sussex and former Labor deputy leader Lord Tom Watson were the only remaining claimants in the High Court case against NGN.
In a statement, NGN said it was sorry “for the distress caused to the Duke and the damage inflicted on relationships, friendships and family”, and notably apologized to the Prince for his treatment of Diana, Princess of Wales, his late mother.
The company said the apology covered “incidents of illegal activity carried out by private investigators working for The Sun, not journalists, during the period 1996-2011”. He agreed to pay her “substantial damages”, without the conditions being disclosed.
The company also issued a “full and unequivocal” apology to Watson for “unwarranted intrusion” into his privacy by the now defunct News of the World between 2009 and 2011, when he served on the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport of Parliament investigating poor media practices.
She acknowledged that he had been placed under surveillance in 2009 by journalists from the Sunday tabloid and also agreed to pay him “significant damages”. Terms were not disclosed.
Speaking outside court, Sherborne, who represented both claimants, described the settlement as a “monumental victory”. Murdoch’s company was “ultimately held accountable for its illegal actions and blatant disregard for the law”, he added.
The settlement will provide considerable relief to some of the Murdoch executives who were expected to be named in the case.
They include Rebekah Brooks, former editor of the Sun and now chief executive of News UK, and Will Lewis, who previously worked for Murdoch’s British press and is now editor of the Washington Post.
Lewis’s position within Murdoch’s media group at the time has been closely watched since he took over at the US newspaper more than a year ago.
NGN has consistently said illegal voicemail interceptions only took place at the News of the World, which was shut down after it was revealed that the paper’s journalists had hacked into the voicemail of the murdered British teenager Milly Dowler.
Until Wednesday, he had not admitted to any illegal activity at the Sun, although he has previously entered into financial agreements with individuals relating to the newspaper’s activities without any admission of liability.
Forcing NGN’s admission of wrongdoing was a key motivation for the Duke of Sussex, who faced considerable financial risk in pursuing his case.
The affair was to be the culmination of the prince’s campaign against the British tabloid press, which he blamed for the death of his mother, pursued by paparazzi photographers before her death in a car crash in Paris in 1997.
The prince previously won damages of £140,600 from Mirror Group Newspapers and has outstanding claims against Associated Newspapers, publisher of the Daily Mail.
Emma Jones, board director of campaign group Hacked Off, said the settlement marked a “humiliating day for The Sun and senior NGN executives, who finally admitted that allegations of illegality made against the publisher were true.
“It is now clear that the newspaper and its publisher lied to the public and to Parliament, in the most extraordinary cover-up in living memory,” she added.
The settlement will require an additional payment from Murdoch’s US channel Fox, which covers all costs related to the separation of News Corp and 21st Century Fox.
Fox, in a similar last-minute deal in 2023, agreed to pay $787.5 million to settle a defamation case in which it was accused by voting machine maker Dominion of broadcasting false accusations of voter fraud in the 2020 US presidential election.
