UK’s Prince Harry settles Mirror phone hacking claim

LONDON: The United Kingdom’s Prince Harry said on Friday that his “mission” to rein in the British media would continue after he accepted costs and damages from a tabloid publisher that invaded his privacy with phone hacking and other illegal snooping.

Harry’s lawyer David Sherborne said at a court hearing that Mirror Group Newspapers had agreed to pay all of the prince’s legal costs, plus “substantial” damages, and would make an interim payment of 400,000 pounds ($505,000) within 14 days. The final tab will be assessed later.

Harry said he had been vindicated, vowing: “Our mission continues.”

“We have uncovered and proved the shockingly dishonest way in which the Mirror acted for so many years, and then sought to conceal the truth,” the 39-year-old royal said in a statement read by Sherborne outside the High Court in the capital London.

Harry was awarded 140,000 pounds ($177,000) in damages in December, after a judge found that phone hacking was “widespread and habitual” at the Mirror Group in the late 1990s, went on for more than a decade and that executives at the papers covered it up.

Judge Timothy Fancourt found that Harry’s phone was hacked “to a modest extent.”

The settlement avoids new trials over 115 more tabloid articles that Harry says were the product of hacking or other intrusions.

Mirror Group said in a statement that it was “pleased to have reached this agreement, which gives our business further clarity to move forward from events that took place many years ago and for which we have apologized.”

Harry’s case against the Daily Mirror publisher is one of several that he has launched in a campaign against the British media, which he blames for blighting his life and hounding both his late mother Princess Diana and his American wife Meghan Markle.

In June, he became the first senior member of the royal family in more than a century to testify in court during the trial of his case against the Mirror.

Harry, formally known as the Duke of Sussex, was not in court for Friday’s ruling. He traveled to London from his home in California earlier this week to visit his father King Charles 3rd, who has been diagnosed with cancer. The prince flew back to the US about 24 hours later.

Harry still has ongoing cases against the publishers of The Sun and the Daily Mail over allegations of unlawful snooping. He recently dropped a libel case against the publisher of the Mail after an unfavorable pretrial ruling.

Longtime practice

Phone hacking by British newspapers dates back more than two decades to a time when scoop-hungry journalists regularly phoned the numbers of royals, celebrities, politicians and sports stars and, when prompted to leave a message, punched in default passcodes to eavesdrop on voicemails.

The practice erupted into a full-blown scandal in 2011 when Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World was revealed to have intercepted messages of a murdered girl, relatives of dead soldiers and victims of a bombing. Murdoch closed the paper, and a former News of the World editor was jailed.

Newspapers were later found to have used other intrusive means such as phone tapping, home bugging and obtaining details of medical records through deception.

Harry also lashed out at former Daily Mirror editor and fierce critic Piers Morgan, who denies knowing about phone hacking when he was at the paper.

In his statement, Harry said Morgan “knew perfectly well what was going on.”

“His contempt for the court’s ruling and his continued attacks ever since demonstrate why it was so important to obtain a clear and detailed judgment,” the prince said.

Morgan, who has accused Harry and Meghan of trying to “destroy” Britain’s royal family, said he agreed “that invading the privacy of the royal family is utterly reprehensible.”

“On that I share Prince Harry’s opinion. I just wish he’d stop doing it,” Morgan told reporters outside his London home.