Prince Harry, Mirror Group Settle Phone-Hacking Case

Prince Harry and the U.K. publisher of the Mirror tabloid have settled all remaining parts of a phone-hacking court case, with the British royal set to receive “substantial” additional damages.

The Duke of Sussex will get an initial down payment of 400,000 sterling ($504,000) after the Mirror Group Newspapers — now called Reach PLC — agreed to pay him “substantial” damages, the prince’s lawyer told the BBC on Friday.

In Dec. 2023, Prince Harry was awarded £140,600 ($178,255) by Justice Fancourt in the British High Court, who added there was “extensive” phone hacking by Mirror Group Newspapers from 2006 to 2011. On Friday, the remaining parts of Prince Harry’s case against MGN were settled in a U.K. courtroom to bring the legal proceedings to a close.

In response, an MGN spokesperson, in a statement obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, said: “We welcomed December’s judgment that gave the business the necessary clarity to move forward from events that took place many years ago. Where historical wrongdoing took place, we apologize unreservedly, have taken full responsibility and paid compensation.”

The December 2023 verdict included the judge naming Piers Morgan, the top editor of the Mirror from 1995 to 2004, and other MGN execs as knowing about the invasive hacking. After that court verdict, Morgan responded by saying he’s “never hacked a phone” while working as an editor or told anyone else to do so. 

On Friday, Prince Harry issued a statement via his lawyer, David Sherborne, who stated outside the High Court on Harry’s behalf that Piers Morgan “knew perfectly well what was going on, as the judge held.” The Duke was not in the London courtroom on Friday after having returned from Britain to California after a visit earlier in the week to see his father, King Charles, following the king’s cancer diagnosis.