Prince Harry’s phone hacking victory is a landmark in the long saga of British tabloid misconduct
London, Dec 15: Prince Harry’s victory against Mirror Group Newspapers on Friday over what a British judge called “habitual” illegal activity is a landmark moment in the long and twisting saga of lawbreaking by Britain’s tabloid press.
Judge Timothy Fancourt ruled that Mirror newspapers had hired private investigators to snoop for personal information and engaged in illegal phone hacking for well over a decade. It’s the latest chapter in a tale of tabloid power and attempts to tame it stretching back years – but it’s unlikely to be the end of the story. In the pre-digital era, Britain’s fiercely competitive tabloid newspapers sold millions of copies a day and would go to great lengths to get scoops, including by using underhanded techniques. One method was phone hacking. Often, it did. Targets included members of the royal family, politicians, athletes, celebrities, friends and family of famous people and ordinary citizens who found themselves caught in the public eye. The first most people knew about phone hacking was when the royal editor of the News of the World and a private investigator for the paper were jailed in 2007 for eavesdropping on messages left by Prince William and others on the phones of royal aides. The paper’s owner, Rupert Murdoch, dismissed the wrongdoing as the work of two rogue employees.
While many tabloid targets have accepted out-of-court settlements, Prince Harry was determined to go before a judge. The Mirror Group case is one of three lawsuits he has launched against newspaper publishers. Harry has made it his mission to tame the tabloid press, which he blames for the death of his mother Princess Diana, for hounding him throughout his youth and for helping drive him and his wife Meghan out of the United Kingdom. He said in a statement read by his lawyer David Sherborne outside the High Court in London on Friday: “Today is a great day for truth, as well as accountability.” (AP)
